


Heroes Never Die

by Ignis18



Series: PotterWatch AU [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M, James Potter & Lily Evans Potter Live, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Powerful Harry Potter, Powerful Hermione Granger, Powerful Nymphadora Tonks, Powerful Susan Bones, Sirius Black Free from Azkaban
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-01-30 21:36:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 42,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21435085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ignis18/pseuds/Ignis18
Summary: It's the early morning of November 1st, 1981, and a baby Harry Potter is about to be placed with a relative...But what if this relative wasn't Petunia? What if this relative was another relation of Lily's? And what if this relative had catched Dumbledore just leaving a baby in the cold November night? What if she was proactive? What if her girlfriend was part of a heroic organization?The butterfly has flapped its wings once more, and with it brought a new possibility for this universe...
Relationships: Emily/Lena "Tracer" Oxton, Genji Shimada/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Hermione Granger/Harry Potter, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Lúcio Correia dos Santos/Hana "D.Va" Song, Noctus Ignis (OC)/Tenebrae Dracul (OC), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: PotterWatch AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1545301
Comments: 25
Kudos: 61





	1. Origins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tyrannic_Puppy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyrannic_Puppy/gifts).

> Hello everyone, I'm Ignis16 starting a second series!
> 
> Blame the great Tyrannic_Puppy for convincing me of writing this prompt that had been swimming in my head for a while now, and also thank him for betain this chapter!
> 
> I'll talk with you all a bit more at the end, so without more to add... ON WITH THE STORY!!!

It was the night of Halloween, 1981, and just hours ago James and Lily Potter had been murdered in their own home. The only survivor being their baby son, Harry.

Hagrid, on Dumbledore’s orders, had gone to the cottage in Godric’s Hollow and, thanks to Sirius Black lending him his motorbike, had quickly flown baby Harry to London, where he would meet with the Headmaster and Professor McGonagall.

Once all three were outside the agreed house, McGonagall spoke.

“Can’t you do something about the scar on his forehead, Dumbledore?” She asked him dubiously, “surely there must be a way to heal it?”

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t,” he said. He had already tried to heal it, but already had a suspicion of just _what_ was inside that mark. “Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground”

“Well,” she started, weirded out by the unnecessary revelation,  _ ‘probably trying to distract me from the topic’ _ she thought to herself irritated, “it could be a lot worse, I guess. At least he will grow up happy, these two seem like good people.”

“Aye,” agreed Hagrid, “Lily’s cousin was always kind the few times I met ‘er”

Dumbledore frowned internally, he had wanted to leave Harry with Petunia, Lily’s sister, but knew that if he tried that with Minerva knowing about the woman’s resentment towards magic, not to mention Lily’s good relationship with her cousin, his plans would fall apart too easily. No, he would just hope this would not affect them too badly.

The old man was about to leave Harry on the doorstep when a very unamused redheaded woman opened the door of the flat.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?!" She asked him, glaring at the way he was leaning down with the bundle in his arms, "you can't just leave a child like that out in the cold! Come on inside!"

Dumbledore was rankled, who was this woman to talk to him that way? But having been discovered, he had no option but to follow her orders. Minerva and Hagrid shared a sad but amused glance at the resemblance of the woman to her cousin before following the headmaster inside the house.

"Now, why don't you tell me just why you were leaving my cousin's child on my doorstep?" She asked them seriously.

"Miss Evans, I'm sad to have to tell you this, but young Lily and James have been… they were murdered earlier tonight in their home, I’m so sorry." Said McGonagall, almost in tears.

The woman's face paled, but she quickly got a hopeful glint in her eyes.

"Lena!" She called to the house, "could you come here a second luv?"

Soon, a young woman with spiky brown hair came through one of the doors.

"What's wrong luv?" She said, concerned at seeing her girlfriend’s face so pale, “and who are you?” She asked to the other three occupants of the room.

"Do you think Winston and Dr. Ziegler could take a look at my cousin and her husband, they-" The redhead caught her girlfriend’s attention, her voice breaking, "they were murdered earlier today, Lena."

The brunette became serious in a moment, "wait here, I'll call them," she said, and before any of the three magicals in the house were able to ask anything, the woman disappeared in a flash of blue light.

Soon, and in the same blue glow, she was back.

“Mercy is on her way to our nearest branch right now,” she told the redhead, “Noctus and his family were with Winston when I called, he said he knew where they lived and went to recover their bodies,” she added, “said he had the needed authority to recover them without people asking too many questions. Don’t worry, Emily, we will have James and Lily back in no time.” She finished with a reassuring smile.

“Well, what are we waiting for then?” Emily said, “let’s get moving.”

“Before going anywhere,” started McGonagall dubiously, “could you tell us just what you’re talking about?”

“We will explain on the way professor!” Said the now livelier woman, “it’s too long to explain before Noctus gets them to the London HQ.”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

While this talk was taking place, Noctus Ignis, a young man with long black hair kept up in a ponytail, was arriving at the cottage in Godric’s Hollow.

_ ‘Well, at least the Aurors haven’t showed up yet, that will make getting their bodies easier.’ _ He thought to himself.

Just as he stopped his car just outside the Potters’ place, he saw Sirius pulling James’ body out of the ruins.

“Padfoot!” He called getting off the car, “get James in the backseat and help me get Lily, quickly!”

“Noctus?” Asked the young Black heir, “what are you doing here? And where would we be taking them? Th-They are gone, Noctus!” At this, Sirius broke down sobbing, what he had just lost catching up to him.

Noctus brotherly hugged the younger man, “don’t worry Sirius,” he told him, “we have a way to truly bring them back. It’s only because of Wizarding Britain’s obsession with being secretive that we haven’t been able to revive others with the same method.” He reassured his friend. “Now come on,” he added after a pause, “let’s get Lily and put these two in the backseat.”

“What are you talking about? There’s no way to bring someone back from the dead, is there?” Sirius asked dubiously as they made their way inside the house.

“The answer, my friend,” started Noctus, a smirk on his face, “is Overwatch, an organization both Lily and James, along with some friends and myself, were a part of. They took leave when Harry was born, but they still are considered agents.”

“And this group has a way to bring people back?” Asked Sirius in wonder.

Noctus just chuckled, “yes, Padfoot, we have a way. Or better said, one of our numbers has a way, she invented the method after all.” He said with a soft smile.

They quickly but carefully grabbed Lily’s body and wand, and got her in Noctus’ car, before getting themselves inside and speeding towards the London Overwatch HQ, they had a couple of friends to return to their son.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Just as Emily and Lena got to Overwatch London, Noctus and Sirius were arriving in the car with James and Lily’s bodies in tow.

“Come inside, quickly!” Shouted a deep voice from the doorway.

The Hogwarts group and Sirius looked gobsmacked at the talking ape standing there, but neither Noctus, Lena or Emily seemed to mind and just quickly got inside the building with their precious charge. Noctus with James and Lily, Emily with baby Harry asleep in her arms.

Soon, the group was looking at their friends’ bodies laid on beds, when a young, blonde woman came through the door of the room, carrying a long, technological staff.

“Thank goodness, It’s not too late!” She said, a soft Swiss accent to her voice, “Winston! Help me up here!”

Soon after she said this, and once the ape, apparently named Winston, had grabbed a hold of both of the bodies shoulders, they saw how the woman’s staff came to life, emitting a golden light that entered the Potters, who both jolted awake.

Sirius and Emily made a mad dash towards the resurrected Potters, Harry still in the redhead’s arms, while Minerva and Hagrid broke down with tears of joy at seeing their friends alive and well, it was a miracle!

Dumbledore wasn’t looking at it with the same eyes as the rest. If the Potters were back, he wouldn’t have the control over young Harry he needed to finally destroy Voldemort. No, for the Greater Good, they would have to go. He started to stealthily move his hand towards his wand.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t allow this,” he said, to the incredulous and enraged looks of everyone else in the room,  _ “Obli-”  _ He didn’t manage to finish the incantation before someone interrupted him.

_ “EXPELLIARMUS!”  _ Screamed a female voice from the door, her powerful spell slamming against Dumbledore’s hand, sending his wand flying in James’ direction, who quickly snatched it out of the air, frowning when he felt it warm up in his hand.

At the door, stood a young woman with long, flowing brown hair. Her eyes, normally a bright green, were a blood red, with the white of her eyes having turned the darkest black.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” She asked, her voice now coming distorted, “and don’t give me that  _ Greater Good _ bullshit! You were about to erase everyone’s memories of James and Lily coming back, weren’t you?! You want them out of they way, DON’T YOU?!” She snarled, her magic lashing out, binding and levitating the old man.

“YES!” Cried the ancient wizard against his will, “Yes, I  _ need _ to have control over young Harry, only  _ I _ can lead him on the path he must go so Voldemort can finally be destroyed!”

“Tenebrae,” said Noctus almost in a whisper, his deep voice icy with contained rage, “is the old man under our truth spell?”

The woman could only nod, shaking in anger.

“Well,” said Noctus, a vindictive, almost  _ evil _ smirk on his face, making the old man gulp on sight, “let’s start the questioning, then.”

Dumbledore knew he was doomed.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

The amount of stuff they managed to get out of Dumbledore during the impromptu interrogation, not to mention how twisted and, frankly,  _ deranged _ , his plans had been, was appalling.

When he was forced to reveal his suspicions about Harry’s scar, the faces of James, Sirius and Noctus paled, the latter quickly moving to Lily’s and Emily’s side and casting a spell over the baby, taking a calming breath when he saw the results.

They decided to put Dumbledore under a magic suppressing field in one of the building’s cells while they decided what to do with the information they’d uncovered.

Once the old man had been taken away by Winston and Noctus, and said two were back in the infirmary where James and Lily were, the whole group started discussing what they should do.

“James?” Lily asked, after a little moment of silence, “why did you pale when Dumbledore mentioned that Harry may be one of Voldemort’s ‘Horcrux’?” She asked uncertainly, just what were ‘Horcrux’?

“Darling,” started James, taking a calming breath, “a Horcrux is one of the most vile, disgusting pieces of dark magic there is. Having made a Horcrux means that you have killed at least one innocent, splitting your soul and putting part of it in an object or another living being.” He told them, to the horror of those who hadn’t known about the existence of such magic, “while just one of these things remains, be it alive or an object,” he continued after a pause, “Voldemort will never truly die.” He finished, hugging Lily and his son closely to himself. Harry had almost lost both of them today, and would have been left to an uncertain future because of the old man, now he would make sure nothing like that could happen. 

“The bad news,” started Noctus after letting James’ explanation sink in, “is that there  _ is _ a sliver of the bastard’s soul lodged inside Harry’s scar.”

Lily’s face paled at this, tears sliding down her face.

“The good news,” said Tenebrae, “is that from the results of the spell Noctus casted earlier, it isn’t truly a Horcrux, but a soul leech. It won’t be difficult to take it out of him without hurting him, don’t worry, it’s my family’s speciality after all!” She told the group with a reassuring smile, “we also should be able to use it to trace the others he has made, a soul leech wouldn’t have dislodged itself from his soul if it wasn’t already in tatters.” She added seriously.

“What should we do about Dumbledore?” Asked Minerva, she didn’t like what she had found out about the old man tonight, but didn’t think they would be able to get him imprisoned, at least not in Britain.

“Tenebrae and I are members of Revered and Most Noble houses,” started Noctus seriously, neither of them liked using their positions, but for times like this they came in handy, “James and Sirius, for their part, are members of two Most Ancient and Noble houses, just among us four we already have a lot of weight. To that add Frank and Alice once we reveal to them what we found out tonight, and we should have enough weight in the Wizengamot to at least get him on trial with Veritaserum, the Pureblood Exclusion law wouldn’t apply to him, as a half-blood.” He finished

“I hope ‘e rots in Azkaban if we can’t get ‘im the Kiss.” Hagrid stated darkly. He was sad, but most of all angry at the headmaster for trying to use him in his plans for Harry. Now, he would do everything in his limited power to help young Harry, the same resolution being made by everyone in the room.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

The ritual to rid little Harry of the leech had been fairly simple and almost harmless, so much so that the baby didn’t even wake up during the short process.

Well, “ritual”, it was just Tenebrae prickling the scar with a special needle and then pulling out the black ichor with her wand, and then storing it within a rune-covered crystal.

“This,” the woman said, holding up the crystal, “is our Horcrux-compass. It should be able to roughly tell us where the bastard’s Soul Jars are, once I learn how to build a map out of it, that is.”

“Well, now that that’s done,” said Winston, looking from Tenebrae to the three “civilians” in the room, “let me tell you, about the Overwatch organization…”


	2. A New Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis16 here with another chapter for this new AU! Once again, blame Tyrannic_Puppy for convincing me to write this, and thank him for beta'ing this chapter!
> 
> I'll speak with y'all at the end, so, without further ado...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

It was November 9th, eight days since that fateful night had passed, and the whole group, now with a freshly added Remus Lupin to their numbers, was once again reunited in the London Overwatch HQ, this time to discuss what they would do going forward.

“We can’t stay in Britain,” said James, “too many of the Death Eaters have avoided jail time, our family would be too much of a target once more, and I won’t let that happen.” He stated seriously.

“Remus and I are not staying either,” agreed Sirius, “I’ll try and convince Andi and Ted to come with us too, Britain is not shaping up to be a good place to raise a kid, even less so with the amount of murderers walking free just because of their ancestry.” No matter what, he would be there for his godson and his brother in all but blood, he too had joined Overwatch the day after their discoveries, so if they were going to any of the bases around the world, he would be able to get some training in, “I’ll try and convince Amelia too, the Bones were also high on their list, and now she’s the only one that can take care of her niece.” He finished.

“We will be staying.” Said Minerva for both Hagrid and herself, “we will keep you up to date with whatever is happening here,” she added after a pause, “also, with Dumbledore going to jail, someone has to look after Hogwarts after all.”

That had been a nice surprise they had gotten. When they went to tell the Longbottoms about their discovery, they had arrived just in the nick of time to help them fend off a Death Eater attack. Seems like the Lestranges and Barty Crouch Jr. had decided that the Longbottoms must know what happened to their master and were going to try and extract that information in whatever possible way. Needless to say, with the amount of trained fighters in the house it hadn’t taken them long to dispose of the followers of the snake faced bastard. 

Soon after taking them out, and once they had managed to calm Frank and Alice down from going to where Dumbledore was being held and killing the old man themselves, they had gotten the Longbottoms on board to get the ancient wizard a trial under Veritaserum, with Amelia being the one conducting the interrogation.

On the way to the courtroom, Sirius paused for a second and told the rest to go on, that he would catch up and needed to tell a friend to be on the lookout for vermin, that  _ that _ specific species could be pretty dangerous.

Once the questioning of the old bastard was on the way, and with Amelia asking just the right questions, Dumbledore’s chances of walking free were slim to none, add to that the memories of the interrogation that they offered, and the old man’s fate was sealed. They didn’t manage to get him the Kiss, but life in Azkaban was good enough.

They had also decided that, seeing the amount of Death Eaters they all had captured walk free, they would use Barty Crouch Jr. as the key to remove Crouch Sr. from the head of the DMLE, and with Frank being head Auror, he was the most likely candidate for the position.  _ That _ would fall to Frank and Alice though, with the rest going away from Britain, those two were the best hope for the country to clean up their act.

Remus had joined them soon after the old man’s trial, with a certain  _ Rat _ stunned in his pocket. Once they passed Pettigrew along to Amelia, she would have a busy day.

The lycanthrope had also asked them what had happened, since he had gone by the cottage and found it in ruins, but Sirius had sent him a patronus earlier to go after the rat. A quick chat after that to finish Sirius’ rushed explanation, and Remus was ready to go with them to the HQ and join the organization.

Winston’s voice brought them out of their reminiscing.

“Emily, Tracer and I are also leaving Britain,” he told them, “I would recommend you come with us to the Watchpoint: Gibraltar, Mercy will be joining us there too. Another two of our agents left the country around two weeks ago to escape being targeted and also went to the Watchpoint. They are non-magical but their daughter is like you, and they knew they would have been a prime target.”

“How old is their daughter?” Asked Lily from her seat, her baby held in her arms.

“She’s about a year older than little Harry, so it would also help them both having a friend about their age close by in the base.” He told them with a smirk.

The four that were leaving exchanged a look and a smirk, seems like they had found their destination.

“We’re in!”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

It was two days after the decision had been made, and the group was waiting in the Overwatch HQ for Emily and Lena to arrive. They couldn’t leave without their pilot after all!

Sirius had managed to convince both the Tonks’s and Amelia to come with them, and was now chatting with Ted. Amelia and Andi were sitting with Lily, chatting and keeping an eye on both Harry and Susan, and little Nymphadora was examining the room and asking Winston question after question, an excited grin on her now purple-colored face.

Noctus and Tenebrae were chatting in a corner and checking different screens with continually changing data, their twin children, Lykos and Rose, reading near them.

Lykos was a rather tall 9 year old, with long hair the same shade as his mother’s and sister’s own, the same with his eyes, the same bright green common for his mother’s family.

Rose was very similar to her brother, just a bit shorter and with a softer face.

The twins were expected to look very different from each other some time from now though, puberty would make sure of it.

Soon, their missing numbers arrived, and they all moved towards the hangar, ready to board the ship and get on their way.

It was upon their arrival at the door to the hangar that James’ communication mirror started vibrating. He quickly took it out and answered the call, seeing Frank’s face on the other end.

“Hullo, Frank!” He said, “Is something wrong?” He asked.

His friend just looked at him, he seemed torn between trying to keep his serious semblance and smiling.

“He’s dead,” he told James.

“What?” James asked back, the whole group stopping in their tracks and paying attention to what was being said.

“Dumbledore, he’s dead!” Answered the head Auror, “he tried to escape while waiting for the boat to Azkaban, a Dementor kissed him before he could do so much as push the Aurors. I just wanted to tell you, Jamie, it was unexpected to say the least.”

“No kidding,” said James. He was  _ shocked _ , he wanted to jump up in joy, cry in relief and hug his wife and child all at the same time. Dumbledore, the man that wanted him and Lily dead so he could gain control over their only son, died trying to escape his fate. A fitting end for a man playing with the lives of others. “Thanks for telling me, Frank, don’t you and Alice forget to come visit us at Watchpoint, and bring little Neville too!”

Frank for his part just smirked at his friend, he knew what he was thinking, hell, he had felt the same when the Aurors charged with taking the old man to Azkaban had told him.

“Oh, believe me Jamie, we won’t. We will see you later, goodbye my friend, safe travels.”

“Good luck Frank, you will need it to clean this place up!” Said James with a chuckle in parting, ending the call and pocketing the mirror.

“Well?” He asked the group at large, looking around, “what are we waiting for? Gibraltar awaits!” And with that, he took his son from his wife’s arms, took her hand and boarded the ship, Gibraltar awaits indeed.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

It was late afternoon by the time they arrived at Watchpoint, and Mercy and the other field agents of Overwatch were already there to welcome them.

“Finally! We were thinking that you weren’t gonna come!” Said a man with an American accent and cowboy hat with a smirk.

“As if, Jesse!” Came James’ answer, a grin on his face, “Sirius, Remus, Amelia, Andi, Ted and Nymphadora,” the moment he said her name, James had to dodge a rock from the metamorphmagus’ direction before continuing, much to Jesse’s amusement, “meet everyone!”

There were  _ a lot _ of people waiting to welcome them to the Watchpoint.

Jesse McCree, the man that had first spoken. He was tall, around James height, with long, brown hair and closed beard. He was American, and was wearing a cowboy hat for some reason. He carried a revolver on his hip, and one of his arms seemed to be robotic.

Next to him, was Alexandra Zaryanova, or Zarya for short, as she had told them. She was a tall, muscular woman, with short, pink hair in a sidecut and a scar in the shape of an X over her right eye, passing right through her eyebrow, she was surprised when she saw young Nymphadora looking starstruck at her hair and changing her color to match. She was Russian, and even though she didn’t look it, she was extremely kind to everyone, and loved kids, if her cooing over Harry and Susan was anything to go by.

Next came Torbjörn Lindholm. He was a short, stout man with short, blonde hair, a long, braided beard, a mechanical arm and missing his right eye. A little girl around Nymphadora’s age was at his side, his daughter Brigitte as he told them, who quickly went to talk to the now-pink haired girl.

Then came Ana Amari and her daughter Fareeha, or Pharah, for short. The two had long, black hair and brown eyes. Phara was two years older than both Brigitte and Tonks, the same age as Lykos and Rose.

Next came a dark skinned man around the Marauders’ age with braided, dark hair and an asian young woman of the same age with long brunette hair. They were Lúcio Correia dos Santos, better known simply as Lúcio or DJ Ribbit, and Hana Song, better known as D.Va, two of the youngest Overwatch members, and also two of the more famous ones. Soon after introducing herself, Hana was by Zarya’s side cooing over the babies of the group.

Then was the turn of a shy, slightly chubby woman with long, brown hair kept up in a bun and a soft looking face. Mei-Ling Zhou, or Mei as she told them to call her, was a climatologist and a kind-hearted woman who soon joined Zarya and Hana, seems like the kids will have a lot of extended family in the future.

Then came the two individuals that surprised most of the group. Two robots, one human looking without eyes and one that looked like a giant turret. They were ‘chatting.’ They reminded the few of them that had watched Star Wars with Lily of R2D2 and C3PO. Soon, the human looking one turned to them and introduced himself and his companion. The one that could speak was Zenyatta, while the turret-looking one was called Bastion. Zenyatta explained to them that while Bastion was capable of understanding them, only other machines and Torbjörn himself could understand him.

Then an extremely tall and muscular man, who could give Hagrid a run for his money, with long, white hair and beard, a scar passing over his left eye, leaving it white introduced himself to them. He was Reinhardt Wilhelm, Brigitte’s godfather and an old friend of both Ana and Torbjörn. He was a kind, jovial man that loved to treat anyone that was interested to tales of his adventures.

Then came a blonde woman that Sirius recognized as the blonde that brought James and Lily back, and a man in a silver armor with green lights in some parts. They weren’t paying much attention to them though, they seemed quite content just being in each other’s arms.

“Can’t you keep your hands to yourself, Angela?” Called an amused Lily to the blonde, who simply turned in her direction and smirked.

“You’re not much better than me most of the time, Lily!” She called back, stepping out of the man’s arms.

Lily practically apparated into the woman’s arms, hugging her.

“Thank you for bringing us back,” the redhead whispered in the blonde’s ear, “I don’t know how I will ever repay you.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for Lily,” The blonde answered, “I couldn’t let my friends die, or keep my godson from ever meeting his parents.”

While the two were hugging, the man walked over to the group and shook James’ hand.

“It’s good to see you alive and well James. Angela told me what happened.” He told him. Sirius could detect a slight Japanese accent in his voice.

“Right back at you Genji,” James shot back before exhaling, “it was a close call, and I don’t know how we will ever repay your wife for saving us.”

“None of that, my friend,” he told his friend with an easy smile, “there can’t be debt among friends, even less so for looking out for them and doing everything in our power to keep them safe.” He then turned towards the rest and introduced himself.

“Hello,” he said, “I’m Genji Shimada, nice to meet you all.”

He stayed there, chatting with both Ted and Andromeda while the last members of the welcoming committee came and introduced themselves.

They were a couple, slightly older than the Potters, with a toddler sleeping in the woman’s arms.

_ ‘This must be the other two agents Winston mentioned.’ _ James thought to himself.

The man was about as tall as him, maybe a bit shorter, with black, short hair and an easy smile.

The woman was just a bit shorter than the man, with long, curly brunette hair and a soft face, a small, kind smile on her face.

The sleeping toddler in the woman’s arms had her face hidden against her mother’s neck, but they could easily see her bushy hair.

“Hello,” said the man, extending his hand to shake, “we’re the Grangers.”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

That night, once everyone had been assigned a provisory home until their definitive residences were ready, the whole group went their own ways to get to know their new friends.

Amelia had gone with Ana to keep chatting and exchanging stories of their time in the field. Pharah seemed to have taken a liking to little Susan and either carried her or helped her walk around like an older sister.

Andi had gone with Angela to have a talk about their field while Ted and Sirius had gone with Genji, Torbörn and Reinhardt to chat and exchange stories, little Nymphadora going with them to keep talking and playing with Brigitte.

Remus had engaged Winston in a discussion and were soon after taking a walk towards the lab, Winston had been interested in magic since learning about it and hearing about Remus’ condition just furthered that curiosity. James wanted to see his face when Sirius and himself revealed their animagus capabilities.

James and Lily, for their part, had simply gone to bed, the events of the past week finally catching up to them.

It was then that James, with an arm around his wife, and their little son asleep between them simply allowed his mind to drift and think about everything that happened recently.

  
_ ‘Yes, we have found a new home.’ _ Were his last conscious thoughts before sleep claimed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Tell me down in the comments! And if you spot a mistake that either Tyrannic_Puppy or myself didn't catch, just let me know! It's the only way I'll get better after all!
> 
> So, yeah, this chapter was mostly introducing new faces and setting the groundwork for what is to come. But let's be real, we all knew there was gonna be a chapter like this, so better to get it out early on!
> 
> Also, I'll explain some of my changes to the timeline so there's no confusions:
> 
> As you can see, Pharah and Brigitte are both kids when Tracer and Mercy are already adults, and Ana is still young and aroud, this is to get some of the groundwork for relationships between the characters, as you saw Pharah taking Susan as a little sis and stuff like that. Also, Mercy, Genji, Tracer and Emily are all around the same age as James and Lily, that is, about 21 years old, so they are not their canon ages.
> 
> In this timeline, Ana never faked her death, so she's still active as an agent, though Morrison and Reyes did die, so I won't be working with either 76 or Reaper, sorry if you wanted to see them, but I'll explain why in the next point.
> 
> There won't be Talon in this universe so Reaper, Doomfist etc. are out of the window. This doesn't mean that I won't include Widowmaker and Sombra though, I'll just have to see how I make those two fit, but they will appearas allies, not villains, again I'll explain in the next point.
> 
> In this AU, our main antagonist will be a certain snake faced bastard as I described him in this chapter, and I prefer to focus on one specific villain than have a ton of villains walking around and end up losing track of them, or not developing them as well as I want.
> 
> I won't tell you more, because that would be spoiling my own plot, and where is the fun in that?
> 
> So, with nothing more to add, I'll see you in my next story or chapter! Or in the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	3. ChildrenWatch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis16 here with yet another chapter for this new AU. Same as always, blame Tyrannic_Puppy for convincing me to write this and thank him for being the beta.
> 
> I'll talk to you a bit more at the end so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

A year had gone by since the British group had arrived at Watchpoint, and a lot had happened since then.

For starters, the day after they had arrived they got to meet Genji’s older brother, Hanzo, a rather serious man with long, black hair and closed beard, though the kids had managed to melt his cold disposition just as easily as they had done to anyone else.

They also had learned from their friends back in the isles that Severus Snape, a man that was once a friend of Lily’s until he had insulted her with the worst slur possible to a muggleborn, had been apprehended while hunting down the remaining Death Eaters as a member of Voldemort’s inner circle and sentenced to the Dementor’s Kiss. They discovered that he had been the one to tell the snake faced bastard the prophecy and point him in their direction, turns out he wanted Lily for himself, so asked Voldemort to spare her and only her when he attacked.

Also during the past year, Angela and Winston had started research into lycanthropy and ways to cure it with samples provided by Remus during both his human state and his werewolf transformation. Their plan was to cure the disease without taking away the wolf’s “conscience,” so to speak, allowing Remus to still talk with Moony even if it wasn’t the cursed werewolf anymore.

Surprisingly, not long after Dumbledore’s death, ‘his’ phoenix, Fawkes, had made his way to them and now lived in the Watchpoint, just enjoying the sun and the view.

And even more surprising, they had discovered a couple of abilities of young Harry. He was a natural born metamorphmagus  _ and _ parselmouth. As it turns out, both traits were passed down to him from James’ family. Metamorphmagi had once been common through his mother’s side, the Blacks, while parseltongue was a common Potter trait that he himself had kept well hidden because of how badly it was looked upon in Britain.

But today, everyone was going out to celebrate the anniversary of not only Voldemort’s “death,” but also the arrival of the British group to Gibraltar.

Everyone, that is, except for Lena, Zarya, Mei and Hana, who had decided to look after all the kids while everyone else was out.

“Thank you so much for looking after them, girls” Said a thankful Lily to the four women 

All the kids had taken to the different agents living in the base as extended family, and everyone responded in kind, so it wasn’t rare to see little Nymphadora on “Auntie Zarya’s” shoulders, or young Hermione asking Winston every question that came to her mind, or little Susan playing with her “big sister” Pharah, or even young Harry being lulled to sleep by his “big brother” Lúcio.

So everytime some of the parents had to go on a mission, or simply go to work, someone was there to look after them, sometimes even more than one person would help looking after the young ones.

“Don’t worry Lily,” said a beaming Zarya who already had Dora, as they had taken to calling Nymphadora to prevent an outburst, on her shoulders, “it’s always a pleasure to look after them!”

“Yeah!” Agreed Hana holding Harry’s hand to help him stand up, “they are just too cute to not love them!” She said before cuddling a now giggling Harry.

In the background, Hermione was asking Mei question after question while Brigitte and Pharah played with Susan and the Ignis twins looked around for something to do.

“Well,” said Lily with a warm smile, she  _ so _ loved seeing her son having such a big extended family, “we will see you all later then.” She said before kneeling in front of her son and kissing his forehead, “be good for the girls, ok, my little lion?” She told him, then stood up and with a last wave to the rest, she closed the door and left the house, all the other guardians having said bye to their charges already.

“Well,” started Lena still looking at the door, “what do you want to do?” She asked, turning around to find herself talking to the air, only Mei remaining there, looking around.

“What? Why?” She stuttered, “Where did they go so fast?”

Hana just looked down at little Harry, who giggled looking at Lena’s face, while Zarya turned to look up at Dora, who just shrugged her shoulders with an impish smile.

“Don’t look at me, I was looking at auntie Lily with you!” She giggled.

“You little minx,” the Russian woman told Dora playfully with a smirk, but seeing Tracer starting to panic, she decided to try and calm her friend down.

“Tracer, stop,” she told her friend firmly, “let’s go at this logically and we will find them in no time.”

Lena just took a deep breath and visibly calmed herself. “Ok, you’re right,” she said, “let’s go at this slowly, who would be the easiest to find?”

“I think it would be Susie, Pharah and Bri,” said Mei, “those three, though normally Dora is with them too, are almost always together.”

“You’re right,” Hana said, nodding and passing little Harry to Lena, “I’ll go look for them, they can’t be too far away after all.” She told them before starting her search.

“Next would be Hermione,” piped up Dora from her seat on Zarya’s shoulders, “she likes painting and drawing in her notebook, so she would find a quiet place to not get distracted!”

“I’ll go and find her then,” said Mei, “I’m the one that lost her after all!” She told them with a small smirk before, too, leaving to start looking for her charge.

“That only leaves the Ignis twins,” said Lena thoughtfully, “those two are pretty easy too, either follow the music, or they are outside sparring.” And with that, the four remaining people in the foyer of the house went looking for their missing charges.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

_ ‘Okay Hana, if you were those three, where would you be?’ _ The young famous gamer asked herself,  _ ‘the playroom? No. The backyard? Maybe...’ _

She kept looking from room to room until she heard Pharah’s voice, and following it came upon one of the cutest things she had seen in her life.

Phara and Brigitte were sitting in front of Susan, a set of cards with figures between them.

“Now, Susie,” said the young Egyptian girl, holding up one of the cards, “this is a horse. Say ‘horse.’” She told the younger girl slowly.

“Ho’se!” Came the enthusiastic reply from the redhead.

“Not quite, Susie,” said Brigitte, “ _ Horse, _ try again!” She encouraged

Hana was just standing at the door, unnoticed, with a silly smile on her face and dying of adorableness on the inside. She took out her phone and recorded them. Amelia, Ana and the Lindholms would want to see this, and what kind of big sister would she be if she didn’t have embarrassing material of her little siblings?

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

“Hermione? Where are you?” Called Mei to the house, hoping that the little girl answered.

“Kitchen, auntie Mei!” Came the reply from the little girl.

The climatologist made her way towards the room, and found her little charge drawing, just as Dora had suspected.

“What are you drawing, nǚ yīng?” She asked the bushy haired little girl, looking over her shoulder. She had taken to calling the Hermione and Susan  _ nǚ yīng _ , ‘baby girl’ in her native language, and little Harry  _ xiǎo shīzi, _ ‘little lion’, just like Lily and James called him, just in her mother tongue.

The little girl just smiled up and showed her her drawings.

It was pretty easy to make out just  _ who _ she had drawn. It was, well, all of them!

She had drawn every regular habitant of Watchpoint doing what they did the most.

Reinhardt telling stories, Zenyatta meditating looking out to the sea, Winston tinkering at something with Torbjörn, the different couples sitting at a table chatting…

For a 3 year old, it was a beautiful drawing, but what most caught the chinese woman’s attention was where all the kids were drawn.

They were sitting in a circle, Hana and Lúcio in the middle of them, the DJ with a guitar in his hands. The one she suspected was Hermione’s drawing for herself had her head on Harry’s own, it was a position they were normally found in, and which never failed to make everyone in the base smile when they saw it. The mothers of both kids always joked about hearing wedding bells in their future, but seeing this drawing, Mei was sure it wouldn’t be joking for long once they were older.

“It’s beautiful, nǚ yīng,” she told the little girl with a smile, “now, why don’t we go to the backyard for a bit?” She asked her kindly.

“Ok, auntie Mei!” Came the happy reply from the little girl.

Mei grabbed the notebook while Hermione pocketed her pencils, and together made their way outside the house.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Lena and Zarya made their way to the backyard with the two charges that hadn’t disappeared. Dora kept looking down at Harry and changing her features, making the little boy giggle and try to copy her.

Soon they were outside, and after seeing the Ignis twins were just sparring, they took a seat on the grass. The twins had been training under their parents since they were 5, and now in the Watchpoint they were also being trained by Genji, who also taught the rest of the older children martial arts, adding yet another style to their mix.

They just sat there watching, just distracting themselves when Mei and Hermione arrived, who both promptly sat alongside them, and they, too, watched the sparring session.

“Where’s Hana?” Zarya suddenly asked, “I doubt she hasn’t found the girls yet?”

Just as she said that, their phones came to life with a new message from the Korean girl.

The three of them had the same reaction to watching the girls teaching Susan as Hana, and now knowing all of their charges were fine and being looked after, they continued watching the twins spar, and waited for the rest to come back home, and pick the kids up

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

It was late at night, and only Hana, Lena, Mei and Zarya were still awake, waiting for the children's parents and guardians to come back. They were exhausted, sleepy, and had beaming smiles on their faces!

For them, it didn’t matter the amount of work it took to keep the eight children from being bored, they just loved hearing them laugh and seeing them happy.

“Today was a great day, wasn’t it?” Asked Hana, laying down on one of the couches.

“Yes,” agreed Mei sprawled in her seat, “yes it was.”

“Next time though,” started Lena, “we’re keeping them in front of us while talking to their parents!” She finished in feigned bemoaning, prompting laughter from the other three women.

“Agreed,” said Zarya in between chuckles.

It was soon after this exchange that everyone arrived and the whole group went their own ways, the younger kids in their parents’ arms, the older ones being softly woken up and walking alongside them.

Little Hermione clutched her notebook closer to herself in her mum’s arms, and with a tiny smile, softly said one name in her sleep.

“Harry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know down in the comments! Also, if you spot any mistakes Tyrannic_Puppy and I overlooked, don't hesitate to let me know! It's the only way I'll get better after all!
> 
> So, yeah, a lot of adorableness and cute stuff with a little timejump included. Also, I should clarificate another thing about my style...
> 
> The good guys in my stories will more often than not be extremely OP, it's just how I write them, and I have no plans of nerfing them or making the bad guys OP too. This is mostly because I like seeing heroes and heroines that can truly stomp their enemies with relative ease, so if you were looking for weak good guys, sorry, but I'm not your guy!
> 
> I've got nothing more to add, so I guess I'll see you on my next story or chapter, if you're still reading me after what I just said that is! Or the comments of other stories! Who knows?!


	4. The Training Starts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis16 here with another chapter for this AU! As always, blame Tyrannic_Puppy for convincing me, thank him for betaing!
> 
> I'll talk with you at the end, so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

It had now been five years since the magicals had arrived at their new home, and no one had been idle in that time.

Tenebrae had started working on creating the Horcrux-locator out of the soul leech they had extracted from Harry’s scar that night, and even though she was making steady progress on it, she didn’t expect it to be ready for another five years or so.

Her husband, Noctus, hadn’t been idle either. With the help of Angela and Winston, he had come up with the idea for _ project Nexus, _ a form of technology that would give their friends a magical’s longevity and longer youth. The system had been ready and in use three years after their arrival, and everyone that needed it, even Winston, had been benefiting from its use.

They had also gotten to meet Overwatch’s hacker, Olivia Colomar, better known as Sombra; and one of the organization's best snipers, Amélie Guillard. Olivia was a Mexican woman around the Marauders’ age, with tanned skin and shoulder-length black hair with the tips dyed purple kept in a side-cut, while Amélie was a French woman of around the same age, with long, black hair kept up in a long ponytail, she had once had creamy white skin, but an accident while helping with an experiment had made her skin blue and gave her the ability to considerably slow her heart rate. Both women had taken to the children as much as everyone else, and had become part of their extended family. They, too, had benefited from using _ Nexus _.

A year after they had gotten _ Nexus _ up and running, Angela had finished her ‘cure’ for lycanthropy, allowing Remus to, for the first time since he was a kid, watch the full moon without being forced to painfully transform into the wolf. The cure also had a surprising effect on Remus’ animagus form once he had learned to transform, turning it into a wolf around Padfoot’s bear-like size.

And last, but no less important, soon after they arrived, and after asking the kids themselves, it was decided that they would start training with the different agents, with the magical kids learning spells and magic from the adults once they had gotten control over their cores, as soon as they felt ready for the different teachings.

And that was how just a year later Genji had started teaching them martial arts while Mei, Winston and Angela taught them the sciences. Soon they had started to learn from everyone else in Watchpoint. Physical training from Reinhardt and Zarya, agility from Tracer and Lúcio, hacking and informatic from Olivia, sniping from Ana and Amélie, meditation techniques from Zenyatta, and so on.

But now, now was the turn for the younger ones to start their training, and they couldn’t wait.

Their first lesson was with Genji, who had asked the older ones to help him as part of their own training.

Susan had been assigned to train under Pharah, Harry was training under Lykos while Hermione was paired with Rose, Dora and Brigitte were training by themselves and acted as aids for the pairs.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

While the girls decided to have a sparring match to test their charges and see where they should start, Lykos settled on a different approach and started showing Harry different katas as a warm up exercise and see his charge’s natural mobility to choose a fighting style that suited him.

The kid was fluidity in motion, with quick reflexes and extremely fast strikes, once he had the right training and body conditioning he would be a terrific fighter, and those striking motions and dodge movements reminded him of…

“Harry, stop,” said the 14-years-old with a smirk, “we have found your style.”

“Wait, really?” Called Dora from the side, looking up in surprise at hearing the older teenager, “so fast?”

“Yep!” Answered a now grinning Lykos, “he’s a Snake, more precisely a Cobra, a long reaching style that uses either just two fingers as ‘fangs’ for focused, joint-destroying strikes, or a wrist-free, full hand as ‘tail’ for strong, whip-like strikes, and that’s not mentioning the powerful kicks and quick, flexible and agile dodging.” He told them, he was ecstatic! He himself was a Cobra style fighter, so having someone to teach it to would be awesome! “Now that we know what style fits you, we can start the training that would benefit you the most.” the older of the Ignis twins told his young charge before dropping into a battle stance.

“Now, Harry,” he said with a smirk, “try and copy me!”

And with that, the first of the younger kids had started their training.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Hermione and Rose stopped their sparring session at Lykos’ proclamation.

The older girl had a small smile on her face watching her brother’s enthusiasm, while Hermione alternately stared awestruck at Harry’s naturality and fluid motions, and looked curiously at Rose.

“My brother has been looking for an apprentice for the Cobra style for a while now,” Rose answered Hermione’s unasked question, “and finding it in a natural at martial arts like Harry, well, it’s not surprising that he is so happy about it, is it?” She asked her charge with a smile.

“No, I guess it isn’t.” Said Hermione, her attention now fixed solely on Harry’s natural ability.

The younger of the Ignis twins looked at her charge from the corner of her eye and smirked, “ok Hermione,” she said, still looking at her brother guiding his charge in the motions, “let’s get back to finding your style.”

Hermione shook herself and nodded before turning towards her trainer and assuming her combat stance.

Rose had been noticing something in Hermione’s strikes for a while now, but couldn’t pinpoint what. Maybe an outsider’s perspective would help her?

“Brigitte,” she called after parring a hit from Hermione, “could you come here for a second?”

The shorter teen quickly walked over to the girls side.

“What’s wrong Rose?” She asked the older girl.

“Could you spar with Hermione?” The slightly taller girl asked the engineer’s daughter, “I want to check over her strikes and stance, but I just focus too much fighting to notice it if I’m sparring with her.” She told her sheepishly.

With a nod, Brigitte took Rose’s place and assumed her own stance, Leopard, restarting the sparring session.

Rose started to analyze every little movement of Hermione’s during the spar, looking at the most minimal detail to find her style. So focused she was on her task that she didn’t notice her big brother approaching her from behind.

“Having problems?” He asked, startling her.

“Yeah,” she sighed once realizing who it was, “I’m not sure what style fits her more. Sometimes it looks like some of the feline styles just for her to shift and look more like one of the bird ones in the next movement.” She ranted at her big brother.

“Hmm,” he hummed thoughtfully, “maybe Dragon?”

“No,” the girl said looking up at him, _ ‘it feels so weird being so different now,’ _ she thought distractedly, her brother had hit a growth spurt not long ago and now she barely reached his bicep!

She shook the thoughts off before continuing, “her stance is too high for an untrained Dragon. I thought it may be Mantis, but…” she trailed off, before adding, confused, “shouldn’t you be training Harry right now?”

“I left him starting hand toughening, I have time.” He told her smirking with a hint of amusement, pointing behind him.

Sure enough, young Harry was slowly striking with just two fingers at a bag full of sand, alternating from left to right handed strikes. Dora was looking over him and encouraging him.

Rose simply smiled at the image with nostalgia. She still remembered when Lykos himself was the one starting that training, and herself being in Dora’s place, keeping his morale up.

“Anyway,” she said, refocusing on Hermione, “what do you think? Is she a Mantis?” She asked for her brother’s opinion.

Lykos simply focused more in the spar and hummed thoughtfully, analyzing.

“I think she’s Crane,” he told her, much to her confusion.

“But she’s not using her legs?” She asked him, “Wouldn’t an untrained Crane still use a lot of kicks?”

“Normally, they would,” agreed Lykos, “but look at the little twitch in her leg before she throws her own strikes.” He told her, pointing at Hermione’s legs.

Rose focused her attention, and sure enough, the girl’s right leg gave a little twitch every time she wanted to answer an attack.

“She’s containing herself,” Rose whispered in realization.

“Hermione!” She called in a higher tone, “don’t keep yourself from what comes naturally! We want to know every move that comes instinctually to you so we may know which style fits you more!”

“Ok Rose!” The girl called back when Brigitte stopped striking, hearing the older teen’s voice.

After that, Hermione’s fighting style was clear. Even though she still attacked with her hands from time to time, her legs were a blur of motion, sending kicks towards her opponent with every good opening she got.

“Okay Hermione, we have your style!” Cried Rose after a minute of watching the girl send kick after a kick, with a couple of open palm strikes in between, “you’re a Crane, a style based around powerful kicks and focused, five-fingertip strikes to soft tissue or open, free-hand strikes at hard tissue.”

The second one had gotten her style, now it was just a matter of training her.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Susan and Pharah had stopped their sparring match at hearing Rose’s voice, which brought a thoughtful look to the Egyptian girl’s face.

“She’s right,” she said after a moment, “if you’re containing yourself, Suse, stop doing it, I need to know every attack that comes naturally to you so we can define your style,” she told the younger girl.

“Lykos! Rose!” She called before resuming the sparring, “could you help me check Susan’s style over?” She asked them.

“Sure!” Came the reply from the approaching teens, “start the match again, we will tell you what style she is after a while!”

At that, both girls nodded and assumed their fighting stances

Lykos and rose started analyzing Susan’s style immediately, they already knew that Pharah was an Eagle, and it showed in her claw-like hand position, but the redhead's style was definitely not a bird, her stance was too low for starters, her fingertips were touching her palm when striking, and then there was her way of dodging.

While a bird-like style fighter would slide to the side while still standing to dodge an attack, Susan rolled to the ground almost without a sound and stood up quickly just as silently.

“Are you thinking the same as me, Rose?” Asked Lykos, one eyebrow raised in interest and curiosity.

“I think so,” came the reply from his sister, “Black Panther style?”

“Black Panther,” agreed the taller twin, nodding, “okay you two!” He called to the girls, “we know Susan’s style!”

Everyone else came around from what they were doing to hear their last member’s style.

“Susan, you’re a Black Panther,” Rose told her, to the cheers of everyone else, “that would make you the first of us in being naturally suited to that style. Where Harry is long-reaching arm strikes and Hermione is powerful kicks, you style focuses more on either taking down silently or strong grips during open combat.”

“So now we have, what?” Asked Brigitte, “two Eagles in Pharah and yourself, two Cobras in Lykos and Harry, one Leopard in myself, one Monkey in Dora, one Crane in Hermione and one Black Panther in Susan?”

“Yes,” agreed Lykos, “we have a pretty evenly mixed group, with a leaning towards joint-destruction and claw-like attacks.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Said Dora, her hair shifting through different colors in her enthusiasm, “I want to spar a bit!” She told them, pulling a laughing Lykos along for a match.

“Do you three think you’re up for sparring?” asked Brigitte to the younger kids.

“I don’t know the girls, but I don’t,” said Hary with a rueful grin, “my arms feel _ way _ too heavy to even lift them!” He told them before dropping to sit in the ground.

“I’m with him, my legs _ hurt! _” Said Hermione before dropping beside Harry and placing her head on is shoulder, the boy placing his own over hers. Their old sitting position having been reversed when Harry became taller than Hermione.

“I’m _ way _ too tired too.” Agreed Susan. “Besides,” she added after a pause, “someone has to keep an eye on the two lovebirds!” She said teasingly, to the blushes of the two snuggling kids and the amusement of the teens.

“Well, rest for a bit then, and keep an eye on those of us with an animal similar to you. That is, you Hermione should watch both me and Pharah, Harry should do the same with Lykos, and Susan with Brigitte. Harry would get to see the kind of movements he will learn in the future, while you girls would have an idea of the kind of movements in similar styles.” Rose told them, waving at them before joining Brigitte for a sparring session, Pharah deciding to practice her motions looking out at the sea.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Genji watched all of this with pride, his older students had become the trainers, and even if they weren’t masters yet, he could already see the warriors all of them, including the younger ones, would become in time.

He stood up from his watching place in one of the nearby tree branches and went to sit with the three kids and watch the teens spar, he was looking forward to seeing them once trained, he would ask Angela to be close by for their first sparrings though, he had seen all of them fight in the past after all, and they were scary!

But that would be the future. For now, he would just enjoy watching the teens practice and telling the kids stories of his own training years, maybe even a story or two of his time training under Zenyatta, that robot may not look it, but when it came to martial arts, he was a slave driver!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you spot any mistakes we overlooked, don't hesitate to tell me! It's the only way I'll get better after all!
> 
> I want to apologize to any actual martial artist that could be reading this if I didn't get the styles right, or they don't even exist. In my defense, I'll just say that I'm writing fantasy, and if there can be talking apes, why can't I just make up some styles for them?
> 
> I've got nothing more to add, so I'll see you in my next story or chapter! Or the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	5. The Shooting Range

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis16 here with another chapter for this rare crossover! Same drill as always for who to blame for this and thank for betaing, that is Tyrannic_Puppy if you gaven't read the past opening notes, by the way.
> 
> I've got nothing more to add until the end, so...ON WITH THE STORY!

A couple of days after their first martial arts training session, and once they had recovered from the strain of the training, Harry, Hermione and Susan had their first lesson in the shooting range.

Here, even though they would have training with all the different kinds of weapons, they would choose the style they would focus the most on, be it either heavy weapons, rifles, pistols, bow and arrow, or throwing blades, among other choices.

The older teens, that is, Dora, Bri, Pharah and the Ignis twins had already chosen their respective styles, with Dora choosing twin pistols like Lena, Pharah going for a light-weight grenade launcher, which, once she was older, would be replaced by a heavier model, Bri opting for a simple handgun, preferring to focus more on her whip-extended hammer for combat, while the twins had both decided to train in throwing blades.

Once again, not only would the Overwatch agents be there to look over them, but the older teens would be there too, to help them decide their style.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

The three kids were standing in front of the weapon racks, taking every kind available in before making their choice. All of the available weapons had been made with their size in mind, so they wouldn’t have to look for one that they could actually hold.

Hermione’s eyes were drawn towards the sniper rifles while Susan’s lingered on the bows. Harry though, he felt torn.

He kept looking between the pistols and the throwing blades, not quite sure which would fit him more, or if one of the two styles would even be over the other.

He knew that throwing blades would go extremely well with his hand-to-hand combat style, but also knew that the pistols could have a better range and give him the advantage in a fight.

“I don’t know about you guys,” said Susan, breaking him out of his thoughts, “But I’ve made my decision.” She told them, walking forward and grabbing one of the bows, then going to stand near Hanzo to begin her instruction.

The remaining two watched her walk away, before Hermione sighed.

“Guess there’s no sense delaying it.” She told Harry with a small smile, grabbing a sniper rifle and going to stand with Ana and Amélie.

Harry watched his two friends walk towards the agents, still unable to settle on a style.

“Problems, kiddo?” Asked a voice from his side, startling hin.

Looking at the source, he saw Lykos crouching beside him, a small smirk on his face.

“Yeah,” the raven haired boy sighed, “I can’t decide!” He said, before frowning thoughtfully.

“Say,” the boy started, “do you think I could focus in more than one style?” He asked the teen, looking at him.

“Hmm,” hummed Lykos, deep in thought, “I guess you could. I mean, I know my parents have training with both throwing weapons and handguns, and I have to admit Lena has given both Rose and me lessons with twins pistols, so I don’t see why not.” He stated with a shrug, before speaking again, “what styles are you thinking of?” He asked the boy.

“I’m torn between a pistol and throwing blades,” he told the long-haired teen, “why?”

In answer, Lykos simply told him to wait there, stood up and went to talk with both Tracer and Genji.

A couple of minutes later, he came back.

“Choose your pistol and blades, kid,” he told him with a grin, “you’re training with us!”

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Hanzo was crouching beside his student, adjusting her hand positioning in her bow, and her stance while holding it.

“Before doing any shooting,” he told the girl kindly, “you have to learn how to hold your weapon. A bad stance or hold, and you could end up hitting either yourself or your allies.” He instructed her seriously.

The redhead nodded, commiting to memory her present position.

“With time, experience and training,” continued the black haired man, “not only will this come naturally, but you should be able to adapt it to yourself, be it standing still, in movement or crouching,” He told her as an incentive, before looking her over and nodding.

“Okay, let’s see what you can hit.” He said, holding some training arrows towards her.

Susan grabbed them and placed them in the table, noticing from the corner of her eye her trainer taking his own bow from his back and one arrow from his quiver, aiming the weapon low.

She took hold of the bow again how Hanzo had showed her, grabbed an arrow and placed it against the string.

“Ok, Susan,” started Hanzo, aiming his bow towards the target at the end of their range and pulling the arrow back, “copy my motions and look at how I hold both the bow and the arrow, then let go.”

Susan did as instructed, her shot coming out a bit low, but reaching the target, followed almost immediately by Hanzo’s own, his reaching the center , around five centimeters away from the redhead’s.

“Not bad for a first shot,” said Hanzo, looking pleased and a bit impressed, “you shouldn’t have a hard time getting the hang of it,” he told her.

“Now, again!”

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“Okay Hermione. let’s see,” said Amélie, inspecting the girl’s stance while Ana checked over her hold on the rifle.

The two snipers had led Hermione to an enclosed chamber that had sealed behind them. They told her that since the rifles made so much noise, it was better to have the snipers training apart from the rest, as to not interrupt the other’s lessons.

“Besides,” Ana had said, “Angela has direct and instant video feed from this chamber, so if something goes wrong, there will be medical help immediately.”

Hermione was snapped back to the present by Ana’s voice.

“I think you’re ready,” the Egyptian woman said, “what do you think, Amélie?”

“Not yet,” said the French sniper, “we’re forgetting the headphones.” She told the older woman and their charge, passing over headsets that reminded Hermione of the ones used on helicopters in movies.

“Right,” said Ana, “put them on, Hermione, they will keep your ears from hurting from the noise, and will allow you to hear us.”

Doing as instructed, the bushy haired girl put on the headphones and took hold of the rifle again.

“Now, chérie,” came Amélie’s voice, ”since you’re aiming at 91.5 meters and there’s no wind, you want your point of impact, which will be the center of our target, to be centered with the middle of your scope,” she instructed the young girl, “if we were on open ground and aiming farther away, you would have to align your shot with the numbered lines at the sides and under the center, we will teach you how later.”

Hermione nodded, took a deep breath, did as instructed and pulled the trigger.

Her shot was almost perfect, just some milimeters to the left, much to her trainers’ pride.

“Well done Hermione,” praised Ana, “an almost perfect shot at your first try, you will get this in no time at all.”

“I agree,” came Amélie’s voice, now with a little of her French accent and the sultrier voice she used as Widowmaker seeping through, showing her enthusiasm, “now, let’s see if you can repeat the feat, ok?”

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“Ok, Harry,” said Genji, slipping his helmet and visor on, “with what weapon do you want to start?”

“I guess I’ll go with the pistol first,” he said, “throwing blades should take me less time to get used to, with the pistol I’m not too sure.” He told them sheepishly.

Genji nodded and Lena did a little jump of excitement before flashing forward and crouching besides Harry, putting her hands over his and correcting his hold on the gun.

“Ok luv,” she said in her usual hyper tone, “shooting a pistol is relatively easy, it’s getting used to the recoil that takes the most time. And aiming, you don’t want your aiming to be off,” she told him, “now, grab a good hold and put both your pointer fingers on the trigger, and don’t relax your hands too much, we don’t want you hitting your face with the gun now, do we?” She instructed him.

Once Harry had done as she told him, Tracer kept going, “now, pull the trigger.”

Just as she finished, the tell tale bang of the gun resonated in the shooting range, and they saw Harry’s bullet hit a bit higher than he expected, but still could be considered a good shot.

“Very good luv!” Cheered Lena, “now do it a couple more times, just aim a bit lower, and then you should switch to blades,” she told him, before getting closer to his ear, “I can see Genji getting antsy.” She said in a stage whisper.

The silver and green ninja just chuckled, “you know I can hear you right?” He asked his friend.

“Yeah,” said Lena with an impish smile, “but I like teasing ya!” She told him with a giggle.

Once Harry had shot again two times, his last shot being perfect, Lena took a step back and Genji came forward. He, too, crouched besides Harry and handed him a container with ten neatly stacked piles of ten shuriken each.

“Ok, Harry,” started the Japanese man, taking out his own, 3-pointed shuriken from the compartment in his hand, “we will be starting your training with these. They are lightweight, and relatively easy to use. Now, these I recommend using mostly for distraction since they aren’t that deadly, unless they are coated in poison or have rusty tips,” he said, letting his words sink in before continuing, “normally you aim for either exposed limbs to disable them, or either the eyes or throat, odds are whoever you are fighting won’t want to keep doing it if they have a star lodged in their windpipe or have just been turned into a cyclops.” He added mock-thoughtfully.

Harry took one of the stacked shuriken in his hand, these had 4 arms that were split at the middle, giving them a forked appearance.

“Now Harry, I want you to take the shuriken so that one of the tips is aiming down, and you have that arm pinched between the tip of your thumb and the knuckle of your pointer.” Instructed Genji.

Harry quickly turned the shuriken already in his hand and held it as instructed.

“Now, I’ll show you how to throw it. I want you to copy my movements.”

With this, Genji lifted his right hand past his head, and in a downward vertical motion threw the 3-pointed star, letting go of it as his hand came to be right in front of his eyes, the blade finding purchase a bit under the middle of the target.

“That,” the ninja said after the demonstration, “is a standard vertical throw. With time I’ll show you some of the other standard throws and also help you in the process of adapting them to your own style.” He told his charge.

Harry nodded at his trainer’s words, and his eyes focused on the middle of the target.

Genji turned towards the boy, noticing him straighten up and his magical aura starting to show, his eyes glowing an eerie green.

Harry didn’t notice any of this, he just lifted his hand quickly behind his head and in one swift motion threw the forked star, which lodged itself right in the center, the blade glowing the same green as his eyes from the energy he had instinctually coated it in.

The ninja took off his helmet while Lena’s jaw dropped.

“Kid,” said Genji after a pause, his eyes wide open and a bit of awe in his voice, “I think you’re a natural at this.”

“What?” Asked Harry, “what do you mean? What did I do?”

“Yo-You,” stammered Lena from the side, “your magic literally flared up before you threw that star!” She said, pausing for a bit to calm herself before starting to get excited.

“I need to speak with Torbjörn!” She told them, “I have to ask him if it would be possible to make Harry a gun that could channel that!” She said quickly before flashing away.

Meanwhile, Lykos had walked over to the target and started examining Harry’s shuriken, noticing how the tips seemed a bit melted and burning his hands when he touched it

“I think we will need to make Harry some heat-resistant shuriken, and maybe some channeling armor too if he’s gonna learn to control that, this thing is a bit hot right now!”

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Soon, their first day of training in the shooting range had come to an end, and even though they were all tired, they couldn’t wait for the next time.

All of them had gotten the hang of their selected weapon pretty quickly, but none could explain Harry’s magical outburst with his shurikens, though they all agreed it would be a useful ability, and Winston and Angela wanted to do some tests on Harry while practicing, to see what it could be and learn if it could be replicated by the rest.

For now though, they would rest. After the long day of training they’d had, their arms were tired and felt heavy, and they couldn’t wait to get to their warm, cozy beds. They would start magical training in a couple of days, and oh how they were looking forward to it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know down in the comments! Also, if you spot any mistake both of us missed, down hesitate to tell me! It's the only way I'll get better after all!
> 
> So, before you start berating me in the comments for teaching a 7-yo how to use a sniper rifle, in my defense I'll say that they are being taught just what they see the adults around them do in a daily basis, so that if they ever need the abilities, they are there, or as Puppy told me, "not child soldiers, just well educated."
> 
> I've got nothing more to tell you for today, so I guess I'll see you in my next chapter or story! Or the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	6. Finding Your Inner Animal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis16 here with another chapter for this AU!
> 
> As some of you may have seen, I'm posting this story over at FFN too over the handle Ignis18, so if you prefer the UI of FFN, jump over! The chapters are the same, the only difference is the dividers, and the AN may differ a little.
> 
> I've got nothing more to add for now, so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

“Enter your meditative state, and then let your mind and self just drift along,” softly said James Potter to the group of kids sitting in front of him.

It had been a couple of months since the younger kids had started training, and some surprising developments had come in that short time.

The whole lot of magical kids had demonstrated off-the-charts levels of power, with Harry being the most powerful of them, though not by much.

After the tests and studies on Harry’s innate abilities, Winston and Angela had been able to come up with the technology needed for him to channel the energy he had instinctively used during his first shooting range lesson. Technology that Torbjörn had used to build him an armor and a pistol, this is not mentioning the heat-resistant shuriken.

And the scientists hadn’t stopped at that discovery, for soon after that they started studying how the Marauders, this including Lily of course, animagus abilities worked, and for ways to replicate it for the non-magical agents and teens. It hadn’t taken them long to come up with the solution, and the _ Guardian Spirits _program was born.

They had also started studying magical creatures in general, trying to come up with ways for the non-magicals among them to protect themselves from, or at least be able to see, the most deadly ones, like Dementors or Lethifolds. But that was at least years of research away.

Which put him in his present situation, with 4 magical kids and two non-magical ones sitting completely still in front of him, meditating. The Ignis twins weren’t meditating with them, having learned the ability early on from their parents, but were sitting nearby, ready to help in case of any accidents.

Zenyatta and Genji had taught them how to meditate, and Lily had built upon that with Occlumency. Luckily magic wasn’t necessary to protect the mind, so no research in how to replicate it had been necessary. Though Noctus was trying to find a way to expand upon _ Nexus _ to be able to give magic to the non-magicals, but that was a long-term project.

He came back to the present when he noticed some movement from the corner of his eye. Turning, he saw both his son and Dora’s forms start shifting.

_ ‘Of course,’ _ James realized, _ ‘with them both being metamorphmagi, it would be natural that their form would change with their minds so relaxed into what they are seeing.’ _

Then he noticed that their forms were..._ unstable _, would be the appropriate word. For example, Harry would at one point grow and fur would start showing on his skin, then he would start shrinking and the fur would be replaced by feathers, just for then start growing again and his fangs would grow, and then start shrinking yet again, this time his skin being covered in black scales, before repeating the cycle again.

Dora wasn’t faring much better. One moment she was shrinking covered in feathers, the next she would shrink more and be covered in color-changing scales, then she would grow a bit, her ears moving from the sides to the top of her head and growing and get covered in fur, then she would grow again and the fur would change color while her ears would go back to the sides of her head and become rounder, and just like with his son, the cycle restarted after the fourth set of changes.

_ ‘What the hell?!’ _ Thought a flabbergasted James, _ ‘if they _ are _ changing to be the animal they are in the vision, why do they shift into so many different things?! It’s almost like...’ _ He trailed off in his mind, his eyes growing wide in realization, _ ‘they have more than one form?!’ _

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_ Harry was walking through a forest, his hooves crushing the fallen leaves, looking for a stream to drink from. His parents were nearby, grazing and keeping an eye out for predators. He took a drink from the stream, a shadow passed over him and he looked up. _

_ Fawkes was flying at his left side, a beautiful snowy owl on his right. He looked towards the ground and saw an animal walking. _

_ He sniffed the air, looking for prey. His paws were burning from the cold snow under them, but the rest of the pack counted on him to bring food. He looked to the side, hearing something. _

_ He looked to his sides, his tongue sliding out of his mouth and feeling the air. He rose from the ground, his crown flaring behind his head. Nothing near, false alarm. He lowered himself back to the ground and slithered his way, he needed to find cover from the sun soon. He looked again at his side, seeing something walk past through the nearby vegetation. _

_ He was walking through a forest, his hooves crushing the fallen leaves… _

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_ Dora was flying through a tropical jungle, looking for fruit to eat before going back to her nest. She heard a branch from a nearby tree break, and turned to look at it, seeing something scurry through for a moment. _

_ She was standing as still as possible, her scales changing colors to hide her among the leaves. The most minimal movement on her part could mean her becoming someone else’s dinner. She aimed one of her eyes down, hearing a small animal move through the ground. _

_ She was running as fast as she could, she had to make it back to her home before predators started roaming. Her ears perked up and twitched at the most minimal sound. She turned to look towards the forest, seeing something moving through the branches. _

_ She was jumping from one tree to the next, looking for some fruit, or if she was lucky some honey. Her prehensile tail hugged a nearby tree branch so she could extend her hand towards the fruit, before resuming her jumps. She saw a shadow pass overhead, and looked up. _

_ She was flying through a tropical jungle, looking for fruit to eat before going back to her nest… _

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_ Hermione was walking through the beach, the members of her wing roaming around near her, looking for something to eat. _

_ She walked nearer the water, saw a fish and struck with her sharp beak, killing it instantly and eating it in one go. She gave a cry to tell the rest where to find some food, and continued to look for more fishes. _

_ Soon, the whole wing had eaten their fill and flew up to the skies again, continuing their travels... _

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_ Phara was flying high up in the sky, looking down at the distant sands of the desert, her keen eyes attentive for the most minimal hint of animal movement. _

_ She saw a fennec fox run quickly through the dunes, and she dove towards it, grabbing it in her sharp talons and looking for a safe place to land and eat. _

_ Once she had eaten her small prey, she went back to her domains in the sky, and started looking for her dinner... _

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_ Brigitte was running through the jungle, her heavy paws crushing the leaves under her, looking for something to eat. _

_ She slowed down and crouched inside a bush, waiting. _

_ Her patience was rewarded when a pretty meaty bird landed in front of her. She didn’t think twice and struck, earning herself her lunch. _

_ Now to find a good tree to eat and take a nap, then go find some dessert… _

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_ Susan was silently stalking her prey. She had been following this particular bushbuck herd for a while now, noticing how one of their numbers, one particularly fat, was limping. _

_ Her stalking paid dividends when the limping one went alone to drink water, not far from where she was hiding. _

_ In a quick jump, she had its neck between her fangs, its blood warming her mouth. Now she just needed to find a tree to eat it in, then she could rest for a while… _

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Almost as one, all the meditating kids and teens woke up from the visions, Harry and Dora still sporting fur in their bodies from their last glimpse, fur which they quickly made disappear.

“Ok guys,” said James once they all had focused on reality again, “what did you see?”

Hermione spoke up first, “I was in a beach,” she said, “I was surrounded by cranes and thought of themselves as my ‘wing,’ so I guess my form is a crane?”

James chuckled before answering, “I would tend to agree, Hermione,” he told her, “anyone else?”

One by one, each of them told the group what they saw and what they thought they were, until only Dora and Harry remained.

“Wait a minute!” Said the female metamorph, “are you guys telling me you all had clear visions?”

“I didn’t Dora,” said Harry, “I guess it has something to do with being metamorphmagi?”

“Ah, yeah, about that guys,” started James, “you two actually started shifting during your meditation, though not enough for me to discern what you were, could you tell us what you saw please?”

“At first I was walking in a forest,” started Harry, “I was looking for somewhere to drink, while a stag and a doe, my parents, grazed and kept an eye out for predators. A shadow passed over me while I was drinking, so I turned up to look at whatever it was.” He told them, pausing to regain his breath and let the first part of his vision sink in.

He recounted his whole vision, leaving out no detail that could help discern what he was.

“I can guess three out of your four forms kiddo,” started James, “the first one was a deer, it was similar to mine from when I learnt, the one in the snow was a wolf, while the last one was probably some kind of cobra.” He told his son.

“Now Dora,” he continued after letting his son process the information, “why don’t you tell us yours?”

Just like Harry, Dora recounted her whole vision, from flying through the forest to jumping from tree to tree.

“Yours are a bit easier,” started James, “the first one would be some kind of parrot, the second is a chameleon, the third sounds like a hare, since you didn’t think of a ‘burrow,’ and the last one is probably a monkey of some kind.”

“But why do they have more than one form?” Asked a curious Hermione.

“I’m not sure,” started James thoughtfully, “but I guess it has something to do with the fact that neither Harry nor Dora have a ‘fixed’ form, so to speak.” He told them, but seeing the confused faces, he decided to clarificate.

“What I mean, is that while both have a ‘natural’ form, like Harry looking like me, or Dora looking like Andi, they can change it as much as they want,” he started, pacing in front of his ‘students’ with his hand on his chin, “I think that, as their normal forms are not fixed to one specifical state, their animagi forms aren’t either, and their minds just drifted to the animals that are closer to either their personalities, or they liked the most.” He finished his explanation.

“Do you think we could teach the rest how to?” Asked Harry.

“I doubt you can _ teach _ them,” said James, lifting a finger to stop their groans of disappointment, “but I think that Angela and Winston may be able to find a way for them to be able to do so.” He told them with a smirk.

“You’re helping them Harry!” Hermione told her friend sternly.

“Yes, ma’am” Said Harry with a mock-salute.

“What I want to know,” started Dora, “is if you think Harry and I could learn _ more _ forms?” She asked James.

“Probably,” said the man, “but I’m not sure. It’s the first time I hear about multi-form animagi after all.”

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Soon, James had them practicing changing part of their bodies into their animagus forms, Harry and Dora having it a bit easier from experience. It didn’t take them long to have at least one part of their body fully in it’s animal form. Harry had a little problem when he fused his legs together for his cobra form, but Dora helped him get back to normal pretty quickly, after teasing him a bit of course.

It would be months before most of them would be able to fully transform, but they would learn. And Mercy saying that it shouldn’t be too hard to discover what allowed Harry and Dora to have multiple forms and find a way to replicate it was a good incentive too!

For now though, they needed their rest. Changing back and forth was pretty tiring for their young little bodies after all!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know down in the comments! Also, if you spot any mistakes that we may have overlooked, don't hesitate to tell me! It's the only way I'll get better after all!
> 
> So, their abilities are starting to show! I know that Susan's, Pharah's and Brigitte's forms are kinda obvious after reading the martial arts chapter, but I'll still ask you if you can guess them! Also, can you guess what bird Harry will be?
> 
> That's all I've got to say for now, so I'll see you in my next chapter or story! Or maybe in the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	7. Happy Birthday, Harry!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis16 here with another chapter for this AU! Thank you to Tyrannic_Puppy for betaing the chapter as always!
> 
> Also, I want to say a big thank you to everyone that's been leaving kudos, bookmarked and subscribed to this story, it means a lot to me guys!
> 
> I've got nothing more to add until the end so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

The young huntress silently crept towards her sleeping prey, putting all her training to use, and pounced.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY!” Shouted Hermione with a smile, landing over the boy and waking him up.

Every year since Harry’s seventh birthday, Hermione had been doing this. He was turning eleven now, but she had no plans to stop doing it anytime soon!

The raven haired boy groaned and sat up groggily. Why couldn’t they let him sleep in on his birthday?

“Hermione?” Asked the bleary-eyed boy, “how did you get in my room?”

“Your parents let me in silly, just like every time,” she told her friend with a smirk, “now come on! The rest are waiting downstairs to have breakfast, then we’ll go for a run” She said, pulling him up.

“Alright, alright, I’m awake,” he said, “just, give me a bit to shower and get dressed, ok?”

“Ok,” she conceded, letting go of his hand and walking towards the door, “but be quick!” She told him with feigned sternness, the small smile on her face ruining the effect.

“Yes, ma’am,” the boy mock-saluted with a groggy grin, before turning towards his wardrobe, taking some clothes out, and walking towards his bathroom.

A little bit later both kids were walking downstairs, Hermione leading a still sleepy Harry by the hand.

“How can you be so active so early?” Asked the boy, rubbing the sleep off his eyes, “It’s our day off!”

“Oh, stop whining!” She told him playfully, looking up at him, “I  _ know _ you still like training on our days off!”

“Yes, but not so  _ early! _ ” He kept the banter up, starting to wake up and walking by her side now, “I normally go for a run in the evening, not at nine in the morning!”

“Excuses, excuses,” she said cheekily, “now less talking and more walking! The rest are still waiting on us!”

They walked the rest of the way in silence, Hermione enjoying the feeling of Harry’s hand around her smaller one.

Soon, they were in the kitchen, where their whole team plus the Potter and Granger parents were chatting and helping set the table.

“What took you guys so long?” Asked a curious Brigitte when she noticed them.

“Let ‘em be, Bri,” answered an impish Dora, “me thinks Hermione wanted to give Harry his  _ gift _ in private.” She told her friend with a smirk, prompting blushes from the two newcomers and laughter from the rest.

She then walked nearer the kids and gave Harry a hug, “happy birthday little cousin!

“Thanks, Dora.” The boy said, letting go of Hermione’s hand and returning the hug.

“Now come on you two, let’s eat! I can’t wait to see your new form in action, Hermione!” She told them.

In the five years since they had started animagus training, they had discovered that metamorphmagi could indeed learn more forms apart from the ones they saw in visions, and Angela and Winston had been able to replicate a metamorphmagus’ capability to have more than one animagus form in non-metamorphmagi animagi, allowing both the older and younger animagi in their ranks to transform into multiple animals and keep adding new forms to their repertoire.

Noctus hadn’t been idle either. He had been working on  _ Nexus  _ a lot lately, and managed to create a device that, while worn, would allow a non-magical to use magical objects for around 24 hours before it needed recharging. It wasn’t his final objective of giving everyone magic, but it was a good step in that direction. He had also helped Winston upgrade Lena’s chronal accelerator with some of the time-turner technology, turning it from the bulky plate she had to wear on her torso into a simple necklace.

After the discoveries, and once they had learned to fully transform, Harry and Dora had started to quickly learn how to transform into their friends’ main animal forms, or at least similar animals, with Dora adding a jaguar and Harry a lion to their forms as felines, cranes and eagles to the birds, and Dora added a wolf among her animals for good measure. The rest were a bit slower in their learning of new forms, but that was to be expected, since they didn’t have the years of practice changing themselves that the metamorphmagi had.

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“Thanks for the breakfast aunt Lily, uncle James!” Said the younger ones, rising from the table, taking their plates to the sink and helping with the clean up before getting out of the house to start their run.

“Be back by five!” Called a smiling Lily Potter from the door, “the Longbottoms, Minerva and Hagrid will arrive around then!”

Frank, Alice and Neville had been visiting them every once in a while, with the Hogwarts staff coming for all of the kids’ birthdays that weren’t during the school year.

“Got it mum!” Called Harry, going back to give her and his Dad a hug before running after his friends.

“So,” started Lykos after a while, turning around and walking backwards to look at his younger friends, “are we going for a run, flying or what?”

“Oh, no! No flying wolfie!” Said Dora, standing on her tiptoes to flick the tall young man’s nose, “I want to see Hermione’s new form!”

“Jeez, Nym, calm down,” said a grinning Lykos with a chuckle, hugging the smaller woman, “I was only asking!”

She huffed, stepping outside of his arms before grinning up at him.

He just shook his head with a smirk before turning around, breaking off in a run and jumping, turning into his black tiger form mid-air.

“Show off!” Called Rose after him, following her brother’s motions and turning into her white tigress form, running after him.

Harry shook his head at his ‘big siblings’ with a chuckle, those two really are like yin and yang, aren’t they?”

“At least those forms are,” partially agreed Brigitte, “though I think they chose them for that reason, to be honest.” She added thoughtfully.

They noticed the two tigers had stopped just shy from the nearby jungle, waiting for them.

“Well, better not make them wait.” Said the green eyed boy, looking at Hermione.

The girl just sighed, a smile on her face before walking forward, slowly morphing into her new form, a lioness.

Harry just smirked and turned into his lion form, the others shifting not long after. Soon, Dora’s jaguar, Brigitte’s leopard and Phara’s tiger joined them, before they all ran and met the twins, running into the jungle.

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James and Lily stood before their home, waiting for their friends to arrive with Lena so they could greet them.

“James! Lily!” Came Frank Longbottom’s voice, a smirk on the man’s face as he walked towards them, his wife and son by his side.

“Frankie!” Came James’ answer, stepping towards his friend and shaking his hand, Lily approaching Alice and Neville beside them.

“Welcome back, Ali,” said Lily, hugging her friend before turning towards her godson, “and a happy belated birthday to you Neville!”

“Thank you aunt Lily.” Answered the boy. 

“We’re definitely joining you here once everything is done!” Alice told Lily with a smirk, Neville nodding beside her, “I can’t get tired of this view!”

“I quite agree, Alice,” came Minerva McGonagall’s voice from behind them, Hagrid walking by her side with a pretty big package in his hand, “this place is beautiful.”

“That it is, Minnie,” said James, hugging his godmother closely, before stepping back and being picked up alongside his wife by Hagrid.

“I ‘ave missed ye guys so much!” Said Hagrid, placing them on the ground and smiling at them.

Lily just chuckled at their friend’s exuberance, “it’s good to see you too, Hagrid,” then she looked at the package in his hand, “what is that?” She asked the half-giant.

“Just a little gif’ for young ‘Arry,” he said, lifting the cover of the package.

“Oh, Hagrid, its beautiful!” Gasped Lily when she saw the sleeping snowy owl inside the cage.

“Tha’ she is!” Agreed the man, “Ol’ Eeylops a-gave her to me, ‘e said it was a she and looked like a snowy owl, but tha’ she was too white for a female. Ah saw her and thought of lil’ ‘Arry, so decided to brin’ ‘er to ‘im. Ah know he’s not goin’ to ‘Ogwarts, but still…” He trailed off.

“I’m sure he’s going to love her, big guy.” Said a smirking James while looking at the owl with a curious gaze, he was sure someone had mentioned a snowy owl once before.

“Speaking of,” said Alice, “where’s the birthday boy?”

“They went for a run around 10,” said James with a chuckle, “they should be about to return though.”

Just as he finished, they heard rapidly approaching, heavy steps from down the road.

Turning, they saw a black and a white tiger running towards them, 6 other big felines behind them.

Just before they reached them, the tigers turned into Lykos and Rose Ignis, both grinning and out of breath.

“Sorry for the delay, aunt Lily,” said the young man, grin still in place, “lost track of time.” He informed her before sitting on the ground, the girl dropping beside him.

One by one, the other cats reached them and laid on the ground, the jaguar placing its head in Lykos’ lap.

“Guys,” said an amused Lily, “at least turn back before getting down!”

With that, the animals started to shift one by one into their human forms, with Harry sitting up, his hands flat against the grass and Hermione on his lap.

“Sorry mum,” he said, before turning towards the new arrivals, “oh! Hi!”

Minerva just chuckled before approaching her honorary grandson and hugging him, “hello to you too, and happy birthday, little kitten,” she told him, before turning towards the group at large, “and those were some beautiful forms you all had!”

“Thanks aunt Minnie, though those weren’t the only ones, those are just our big cats.” Said Hermione, snuggling more against Harry’s chest.

“Oh? And what other forms do you all have?” Asked the now curious transfiguration mistress. Animagus transformations were advanced transfiguration after all, and if there was a method to expand her knowledge in her craft, she was  _ very _ interested in finding out.

“Well,” started Dora thoughtfully, having shifted from having her head on Lykos’ lap to sitting beside him, “Pharah is a golden eagle, a tigress and a fennec fox; Bri is a leopard, a white-tailed eagle and an Arctic fox; Hermione is a grey crowned crane, a lioness and a gray wolf; Susan is a black panther, a red-tailed hawk and a red fox; Lykos is a black tiger, a black wolf and a black eagle while Rose is a white tigress, a white wolf and a white eagle, though we’re pretty sure they have more forms they aren’t showing us.” Here she paused for a bit to let her words sink in and playfully glare at the young man beside her.

“Then you have Harry and me,” she continued after the pause, “it was from studying us transforming that aunt Angela and Winston were able to come up with the way for anyone to have more than one animagus form. Harry is in his base, a stag, a bird none of us has been able to identify, a wolf and a cobra, and to that he has added a lion, a grey crowned crane and a Philippine eagle; while I’m a scarlet macaw, a chameleon, a hare and a white-cheeked gibbon as a base, and I’ve added a jaguar, an eagle and a wolf to my forms.” She finished her explanation to the shocked witch.

James slowly approached his godmother, “Angela can give you what you need to be able to do the same, Minnie. All of us have taken the pill and developed the ability.”

“Jamie, how is this possible?” Asked Minerva.

“Let me answer with another question, what do Harry and Dora have in common?” The Marauder asked back.

“Well, they both are…” trailed off the witch, her eyes growing wide in realization.

James nodded, “our current theory is that, since metamorphmagi don’t have a fixed form naturally, their animagus form is not limited either, so they can just teach their bodies to change that form as they always do.”

“But then, how are the others doing it too?” She kept asking.

“As Dora told you, both Angela and Winston studied them while transforming, checking changes in their blood and body apart from their magic, just like they did to originally develop the serum that allowed animagus transformations in non-magicals, and managed to pinpoint what controlled that ability and make a pill that gave the body of anyone that ability.” He explained.

Just as he finished, the rest of the agents arrived, and Harry’s birthday party truly began.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Once the party was well underway, the time came for the birthday boy to open his gifts.

From the Ignis family he had received a pair of daggers and some custom shuriken. Rose told him that Torbjörn had taught her how to forge the heat-resistant metal they used for them, and the twins would be doing this new kind for him from now on. The new shuriken had five lighting shaped arms that were cut in the middle like his old shuriken, giving them a forked appearance.

The daggers were curved and had a stag and a doe engraved in the handle, one in each dagger, and from what Lykos had told him, they were made with cobra style fighting in mind, so he would teach him how to use them.

From Genji and Angela he got a sword, a katana with a lion’s head engraved in the habaki, the collar of the blade. “Just like Lykos will be training you with the daggers, I will be training you with that sword.” The man had said.

The Grangers had given him new running and training clothes, and as a pleasant bonus he received a kiss on the cheek from Hermione.

Ana and Pharah got him a leather jacket with an eye of Horus over the heart and an Ankh on the back. Pharah told him later that they had asked his Dad to enchant it so it would grow with him.

From Amelia and Susan he got a pair of shoes with silencing enchantments on the soles. Susan had found the right moment to tease him though.

“I would kiss you on the cheek,” she had said, “but Hermione would probably turn into her lioness and claws my eyes out!”

Remus and Sirius had gotten him a new broom. They told him that since he had outgrown his toy one quite a while ago, he may like to have a real one now.

From the Lindholms, he got an upgraded version of his channeling armor. Now he would be able to channel his magical aura through the fingers into sharp sets of claws.

From Reinhardt he got a t-shirt with a viking wolf design and a pair of bracers with the same wolf on them.

From Lúcio he had gotten a guitar and a promise to teach him how to play it.

Hana had given him a new game console and quite a collection of games. Looks like having a professional gamer as a ‘sister’ had its perks!

Olivia and Amélie had pitched in together to get him a new computer. Olivia had whispered to him behind Amélie’s back that she had installed some of her hacking tools on it.

From the Longbottoms he got an attachable wand holster. Uncle Frank told him that he could attach it to any piece of clothing, be it his armor or his new bracers. “You’ll thank us once Noctus and Tenebrae make you your definitive wand.” He had said with a smirk.

From Mei and Winston he had gotten a wristband that allowed him to get in contact with any of the Watchpoint residing agents. They had worked alongside Torbjörn and Bri to allow it to integrate with the new armor.

From Hanzo he had gotten a necklace of a dragon holding a lightning bolt and a black button up shirt with the same design in the breast pocket.

Jesse had given him a pair of jeans and a belt. Its buckle had a stag and a doe engraved on it in the same style of his daggers.

Emily and Lena had gotten him a sweater with a sandglass motive and a pair of glasses in Lena’s typical style.

From the Tonks he received a pair of black dragonhide, snug fitting gloves with a lightning bolt in the back of the hand. They were enchanted to conceal anything in his hands.

From Minerva he got a collection of books that ranged from  _ ‘Hogwarts, a History’  _ to some pretty obscure magic tomes. Hermione had made him promise to lend them to her at some point.

The gifts that had truly shocked him came from his parents and Hagrid.

His parents had given him an Invisibility Cloak and his mum’s old charms journal, full of some of her best creations.

He hugged them both before placing their gifts on the table and turning towards the beaming half-giant.

When Hagrid uncovered the cage, Harry froze for a second before speaking.

“Hedwig,” he whispered.

“What was that Harry?” Asked James, the memory of the first animagus lesson coming back full force. Harry had told him that the vision for his bird had been himself flying between Fawkes and ‘a beautiful snowy owl.’

“Her name,” said Harry in a soft voice, his eyes still focused on the bird, “is Hedwig.”

After saying the bird’s name, Harry’s body began to shift into his first avian animagus form.

His body and legs began to shrink while his arms elongated, quickly reaching the floor. His hair receded inside of his scalp, and his whole head took a vulture-like appearance. His torso and arms started to get covered in a golden plumage.

Soon, standing where Harry had been moments ago was a golden-feathered Andean condor, his wings open to their maximum size.

The two birds began to ‘speak’ back and forth, but no one, not even the younger ones turning into their own bird forms, could understand what they were ‘saying’ to each other.

This went on for around five minutes before Harry turned back into his human form, a shocked look on his face.

“Harry?” Came Lily’s worried voice, “sweetie, what happened?”

“She told me what she was,” started Harry, “and told me what little she knew about my own form too. She’s a ‘snow phoenix’ I think she called her species, and told me that, even though she didn’t know what kind that form was, it was at least related to phoenixes too.”

They all stopped to think about what Harry had said.

“It makes sense,” said James thoughtfully after a while, “if both her and Fawkes were with you in that vision flight, it would check out that your form was somewhat related to them.”

“At least now we know in what direction to search for,” came Hermione’s supportive voice, “a phoenix. Harry, that makes you the first of us to have a magical form!” She told him happily.

This at least brought a chuckle out of Harry, the tension in the air receded and the party continued on.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Once the kids had gone to bed, the Overwatch agents, Minerva and Hagrid were chatting when Frank and Alice approached them.

“Guys, we need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you spot any mistakes that we may have overlooked, don't hesitate to let me know! It's the only way I'll get better after all!
> 
> Pretty mean cliffy I left you with, I know, but don't worry, I already have most of the next chapter in mind, and you should have it tomorrow if nothing goes wrong. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep the daily schedule, but for now I can, so...
> 
> Also, I'm really sorry if the gift list was a bit tedious to read, but I couldn't find a way to compress it without deleting the bit about Hedwig and Harry's original bird form.
> 
> And speaking of Harry's bird form, a lot of you may be thnking 'why a condor?' Well, the answer is that I was looking for a bird that looked regal and scary, apart from having a size to match, and I'm Chilean, so the first bird that came to mind was a condor, and doing some research it ended up being one of the biggest birds on Earth, and I sure as hell wouldn't make Harry an Albatross after watching some Monty Python skits, so a condor. And his color will be something I'll be going into later on in the story.
> 
> Also, if you're following 'Birth of Harmony' I'm sorry for the lack of chapters, but this story has consumed my mind for now. I know what I want to do for BoH's next chapter, but I haven't taken the time to write it down, so, once again, sorry!
> 
> Well, I've got nothing more to add, so I'll see you in my next chapter or story! Or the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	8. Jewelry Hunting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis16 here once again, bringing you the daily (for now) chapter!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has been subscribing, bookmarking, commenting and leaving kudos, it means a lot to me guys!
> 
> I'll talk with you lot a bit more at the end so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

_ “Guys, we need to talk” _

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

James looked at his friends’ serious faces.

“Does this have anything to do with Voldemort?” He asked, and at seeing their nods, turned towards Noctus and Tenebrae, they didn’t make him wait.

“Let’s take this to our place,” the woman said, rising alongside her husband, “we have something to show you, anyways.”

The whole group made their way to the nearby home, where Lykos and Rose were sitting at the doorstep.

“Lykos said that he felt something weird tonight,” Rose explained at her Dad’s raised eyebrow, “considering the last time that happened was Halloween ‘81, we thought it may be a good idea to wait for you.”

Noctus nodded with a grim face and motioned for them to stand up so he could open the door.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Once the whole group was inside and in the Ignis work room, everyone took a seat around the table in the middle of the room. They could see floating over them an holographic globe. Sections of the globe were shining red, most of them concentrated in Britain, but one was somewhere to the east of Italy.

“You finished it.” Breathed out Lily, looking at the hologram.

“Yes, I managed to take out the last few kinks last night.” Tenebrae told them

“So the bastard did make Horcrui?” Asked Alice, looking intently at the circle outside Britain.

“It was either that or he had somehow debilitated his soul enough for a leech to dislodge itself from it.” Noctus said grimly.

They let the group analyze the map before tackling the elephant in the room.

“Frank, Alice,” started James at Noctus’ nod, “what happened? He hasn’t made himself a new body, has he?” He asked, worried.

“No, nothing quite as dire as that Jamie,” said Frank, calming his friend down, “but we found out some stuff about both Voldemort himself and the Dark Mark. It could make this war a lot easier to win if we’re right.”

“What is it?” Asked an interested Lykos. Any form of advantage over the enemy would be a blessing when that enemy held the power in their home ground.

“For starters, Voldemort’s full identity, seems like what you got from Dumbledore wasn’t all there was to it,” Frank said, “his full name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, son of Tom Riddle, a non-magical, and Merope Gaunt, a pureblood almost squib. Seems like Merope was in love with Tom and used a potion to attract him, when she got pregnant, she stopped dosing him, he left her instantly and Merope died in childbirth, her last request being the name of her son.”

Minerva and Hagrid shared surprised looks, Tom Riddle was  _ Voldemort?! _

“But, where did the ‘Voldemort’ come from?” Asked a confused Sirius.

Noctus had his eyes closed in thought, but at Sirius’ question he quickly moved towards one of the screens and wrote the name down.

“Athena, could you check what I just wrote for anagrams, please?” He asked of the Overwatch AI.

“Of course, Noctus, give me a second.” Came the computer’s response.

Soon, they were looking at the origin of the bastard’s name.

_ ‘TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE’ _

_ ‘I AM LORD VOLDEMORT’ _

Everyone looked at the screen gobsmacked, Britain had been scared of saying an  _ anagram?! _

“I feel really stupid right now,” whispered Sirius, breaking the silence.

“Okay, that covers the identity. Now, what was that about the Dark Mark?” Asked Tenebrae.

“I had a talk with Croaker, the head of the Unspeakables,” started Alice, refocusing on the matter at hand, “we agreed that the Mark should have been researched during the bastard’s first rise, but with most of the Death Eaters walking free and bribing everyone to stop their cases from being looked at too closely, it just wasn’t possible. So we got some Aurors that we knew we could trust and gave the Lestranges to them to research on, and they it bore fruits, more than we expected actually.”

“How so?” Asked an interested Noctus.

“Well, for starters they discovered the Dark Mark is a bastardized version of the Protean charm, and that it had a magic syphon ingrained in it that went towards the master Mark, turns out the only reason the bastard was so powerful was because he could tap into all of his followers’ magic at the same time,” Frank told them, “but we also discovered that a certain Barty Crouch Sr. had bribed his way into Azkaban with his dying wife, ‘to visit his son’ was what he said if I recall correctly. A couple of days later both his wife and son are dead. We raided his house and found Jr. Imperiused and under an invisibility cloak, needless to say, Jr. had a date with a Dementor soon after while Sr. is now occupying his son’s old cell.”

“Wait,” Lily said thoughtfully, “did you say ‘tap into his followers magic?’”

“Yes, what about it?” Asked a now confused Frank.

“If he was using their magic, what would happen if the bastard truly died this time?” Asked James, slowly growing more and more hopeful as he realized what his wife was implying.

“Well, normally I would expect his magic to…” Started Alice, trailing off in realization before continuing in a now gleeful voice, “to either syphon all of the Death Eaters’ magic with it or at least leave them magically exhausted!”

“Exactly!” Said a grinning Lily, “so at worst we would have a lot of exhausted Death Eaters to deal with, and at best they would either be squibs or dead!”

“That will surely come handy in the future,” said an smirking Amelia, “but for now there’s not much we could do, the bastard still has his Horcrui after all.”

“But now we know where they all are,” said Tenebrae, “and I say we start hunting down the ones we can easily get.” She proposed, touching Britain in the Horcrux map.

The globe lowered itself towards the table, flattening and showing only the isles. Tenebrae touched one of the red areas, London, and the map zoomed in, showing them a three-dimensional view of the whole city. She tapped the red circle once again, and it zoomed in even more, showing now a battered house in a pretty run-down neighbourhood. The house had a number 12 on the door.

“And I would suggest we start with the one that’s most available to us.”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Two figures silently dropped in front of Number 12, Grimmauld Place.

“I thought I would never have to see this place again after I ran away,” whispered the taller of the two, walking towards the door.

“I know the feeling, my friend,” said the other, his visor glowing green in the dark night, “so let us get this done quickly so we can go back home.”

Just as silently as they dropped, Sirius tapped the door, the house opening itself to its true Lord.

“Let’s get whatever it is and get out of here, this place gives me the creeps.” He said, putting on his dragonhide gloves and taking out the crystal Tenebrae had given them before leaving from his pocket.

They were supposed to bring whatever the item was back to the Watchpoint so the scientists among them could study it before Tenebrae got the Soul Shard out of it. And to make sure they would know what it was, Tenebrae had given them the crystal where she had originally stored the soul leech she had gotten out of Harry’s scar.

They walked through the hallways of the ancestral home of the House of Black without making a sound, keeping an eye out for both traps and an intense glow in the crystal, notifying them of the Horcrux’s proximity.

Soon they reached the doors of the drawing room, the crystal glowing brighter than before.

“I guess it’s here,” whispered Sirius, slowly opening the door and walking inside.

They found their objective inside a dust-covered glass case.

It was a large, oval locket of heavy gold with a serpentine 'S' in green jewels.

“Salazar Slytherin’s locket,” whispered Sirius, studying the Horcrux in his hands, “thanks for taking this away from the bastard Reggie.”

“We have what we came for. Let’s go Genji, I don’t want to have this thing on me longer than necessary.”

“You and me both my friend.”

Just as they were about to leave the house, they heard a deranged cry behind them.

“BAD MASTER WON’T STEAL MASTER REGULUS’ LOCKET!”

In one swift movement, Genji had unsheathed his tanto and decapitated the pouncing creature, ending its life.

“Sirius, what was that?” Asked the ninja

“Kreacher, my mother’s preferred torturer apart from herself,” came the reply, “let’s get out of here before something else decides to stop us.”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

The Sun was high in the sky by the time the ninja and the Marauder were back in the Watchpoint and showed their prize to the rest of the group.

“We have the Horcrux, now what?” Asked Sirius. The thing had tried to breach his Occlumency shields, it was a good thing they were fairly powerful.

“Now we study this thing before Tenebrae pulls the Soul Shard out,” said Winston, watching the locket from behind a window, different cameras and other equipment surrounding it, “hopefully we will be able to come up with a way for whoever goes to recover the next ones to remove the Shard in situ instead of having to bring it back here every time.”

“Let’s just hope all the others are as easy as this one,” said James, standing near them, “though I would prefer it if either Harry when he’s older or myself are part of every recovery mission, the bastard was a Parselmouth and I know there are some nasty spells that can only be countered in Parseltongue.” He told them grimly.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Meanwhile, in the backyard of the Potter’s home, the younger team was sitting around and watching Harry and Lykos spar.

The boy had come a long way since he had started training martial arts five years ago. Back then, he couldn’t land a hit on his master, his motions always too slow and clumsy in comparison to Lykos’ own, more refined and experienced movements, but slowly, as Harry’s body got used to the movements and flowing of the Cobra’s strikes, he had started to graze his trainer’s skin. 

This development sped up once he managed to fully transform into his snake animagus form, his body now even more naturally accustomed to a snake’s motions, and soon he had managed to start truly exchanging blows with Lykos. And slowly but surely, the gap between master and student was closing, much to the older fighter’s pride and pleasure.

“Do you think you could teach me how to become an animagus?” Asked Neville during a lull in the fight, Lykos had just thrown Harry to the ground with a quick ‘tail swipe’ and was now showing the boy where his stance had been to open.

“In theory we should,” started Phara, pausing to wince at the loud  _ thwack _ of the sparring guys’ arms meeting mid-strike, “but I think it would be better, and safer, if you asked either uncle James, uncle Sirius, uncle Remus or aunt Minnie to teach you,” she told the boy, “but don’t worry too much, it’s not as hard as they say, even less so when you know Occlumency.”

“Well, it’s a good thing gran taught me then.” Said a smiling Neville, before wincing at the thud of a body hitting the ground, “all right there, Harry?” He asked his friend with a smirk.

“Shut up, Neville!” Came Harry’s joking response.

Lily Potter heard the laughter coming from the backyard and shook her head amused before writing in her journal.

_ “We have been living at Watchpoint for 10 years now, and finally we have done some progress in finally riding the world of the dark bastard that tried to kill our family in the past. _

_ Sirius and Genji went to Britain last night to recover one of Voldemort’s Horcrui, finding it in Sirius’ parents’ home. Apart from a demented house elf, the house was empty of life from what they told us, but they managed to find the object without trouble and bring it back here. _

_ Turns out the snake-faced lunatic used Salazar Slytherin’s locket to store one of his Soul Shards. Tenebrae says that the ritual she will use to cleanse it of Riddle’s taint won’t damaging the founder’s relic or be a risk to anyone around. I just hope she’s right. _

_ But enough of bad thoughts. _

_ I haven’t told James yet, but I’m late this month.” _

She closed her journal, put her pen down and went to the backyard to tell the kids she would be gone for a while, before leaving for the laboratory to help with studying the Horcrux.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

That night, they once again reunited at the Ignis’ place to plan what to do next.

They were all studying the map with frowns on their faces.

“Well, shit.” Sirius summed up everyone’s thoughts at what they were seeing.

The bad news were that one of the Horcrui was inside Gringotts. The good news were that it was inside Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault, Sirius’ cousin.

“Think you can do something to make this one easier to get, Padfoot?” James asked his old friend.

“I would have to check the marriage contract that landed her with Lestrange,” said Sirius thoughtfully, “if it wasn’t totally fulfilled, I should be able to claim their vault as compensation. With them in jail, there wouldn’t be anyone to question it.”

“Will we go after that one next then?” Asked Frank.

“Yes,” agreed Noctus, still looking at the map, “it would be the next easiest to get.”

They kept refining the plan deep into the night, making sure every little hole was covered before retiring to their homes and beds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you spot any mistakes that I may have overlooked, since I was too eager to publish this chapter and couldn't wait for Puppy to beta it (sorry man!), don't hesitate to let me know! It's the only way I'll get better after all!
> 
> They finally managed to get the map working and to bring one of Voldy's Horcrui! I'm sorry for taking so long to reach that, but I so wanted to write their training and Harry having a happy birthday that I thought all the truly serious stuff could wait for a while!
> 
> Also, don't expect all of the DEs to just die with Voldy, there will be some action scenes that I already have planned, otherwise I wouldn't have put so much emphasis on the kids' training!
> 
> I guess that's everything I have to say for now, so I'll see you in my next chapter or story! Or the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	9. A Cup and A Prophecy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis here again with the next chapter for this story! A big thank you to Tyrannic_Puppy for betaing this.
> 
> Also, a big thank you to everyone that's been subscribing, bookmarking, commenting and leaving kudos. It means a lot!
> 
> I'll talk with you all at the end, so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

The Longbottoms, Minerva and Hagrid had left a couple of days after the mission to recover the locket from 12 Grimmauld Place. The recovered Horcrux was still being studied at the lab, with Tenebrae checking every spell placed on it, to make sure none would react badly to the ritual or leave it ineffective. It would be at least a month before they could cleanse the locket, but that was fine, they had time.

While this was being done, Sirius had been in contact with the Black Account Manager trying to get a hold of the marriage contract between Bellatrix and Rodolphus, hoping there would be an easy way for them to claim the Lestrange vault and get the Horcrux within.

It took a couple of weeks before the document was found and sent over to Watchpoint. That same night, the agents once again met in the Ignis’ work room to go over the contract and check it for ways to make their mission easier. It didn’t take long.

“Got it!” Called James, pointing at a line on the screen where the parchment was being projected, “There’s an heir clause! ‘If the marriage hasn’t produced at least two heirs within five years, the head of the House of Black will have the right of nullifying the marriage and/or claim the House of Lestrange’s vaults as compensation.’”

“That’s…” Started Emily, gobsmacked, “That’s  _ ridiculous! _ What kind of idiot would sign something like that?!”

“Normally it’s inbred bigots, to be quite honest,” said Sirius with a sigh, “but it’s a common clause in my family’s marriage contracts. That way they could force the other family into ruin and take the bride back into the last name and House.”

“At least it will make getting the Horcrux easier, right?” Said Lily.

“Yes,” agreed the dog animagus, “now I’ll just need to make an appointment with the Account Manager and fill some paperwork, then I’ll be able to go down to the Vault and get the Horcrux out.”

“James and I will go with you, just in case.” Said Noctus.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Three days after receiving the contract, the three men made their way inside Gringotts London.

Just as they entered, a goblin approached them and led them towards the Account Manager’s office.

“Thank you for seeing us, Master Darksteel.” Said Sirius, bowing alongside his friends in front of the goblin.

“Don’t stand on formalities you three,” said the old banker, “you have always treated our kind with respect, the least thanks I could give you is being informal when in private!” He told them with a chuckle.

“Now, I guess this meeting has something to do with the document you asked for, Sirius?”

“Yes, it does, Darksteel,” agreed the man, “I’m here to claim the Lestrange vaults in compensation for breaking the terms of the contract.”

“Ah, the heir clause, yes,” nodded the goblin, “quite a harsh penalty, that one, would it be too indiscrete of me as to ask the why?” He asked the men in front of him.

“We need access to the Lestrange vaults,” Noctus started their explanation, “we have information that inside one of them there’s an object that could keep a certain snake-faced bastard anchored to this plane of existence.” He told the old goblin.

At this, the Account Manager’s visage grew serious, a frown marring his face. “You mean to tell me that they hid one of those Horcrux abominations inside the bank?!” He snarled.

“I see you like them as much as we do.”

“Those atrocities are crimes against the Ladies Death, Fate and Magic themselves! Of course we abhor them!” The goblin told them, his voice ragged, “let’s get you the needed paperwork, Sirius, and get that monstrosity out of this bank as fast as you can!”

Soon after that, the three men found themselves looking around inside a vault full to the brim with objects, the crystal in Noctus’ hand shining brightly.

”Any protections we should be aware of?” Sirius asked the goblin that had taken them down.

“There’s Gemino and Flagrante curses on every object inside the vault. If anyone tried to take anything, they would be buried under the duplicates and burned alive.” The goblin answered.

“Did you hear that Noctus?” Sirius called to the roaming man.

“Loud and clear Padfoot! Your cousin really was a mad bitch, wasn’t she?” Came the answer. “Wait, I think I’ve got something!” He called after a pause, his eyes trained on a golden cup sitting high up on a shelf.

“Great, but how do we get it down without killing ourselves?” Asked James, coming to stand beside Noctus, Sirius with him.

“I think I may be able to help you, gentlemen.” Said the goblin that brought them down, coming closer.

When he was right at their sides, the goblin raised his hand and levitated the cup down, placing it in a bag once it was in reach.

With that, the group made their way out of the bank and back home. They were another step closer in bringing Voldemort down for good.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

The team was in the backyard, sitting around Lúcio and watching him teach Harry how to play his new guitar when Lily came out of the house.

“Kids, I have to go to the lab to help study something James, Noctus and Sirius brought back from their mission, I’ll be back soon, okay?” She told them sweetly.

“Ok mum!” Came Harry’s answer, “but just  _ what _ are you all researching? You have been gone a lot lately.” Asked Harry curiously.

Lily just smiled at her son before answering. “I’m surprised you held the question back for so long, we will tell you once we’re back, ok? To all of you.”

At their nods, she just smiled again and left. She wondered if after their chat the kids would want to increase their training.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

That afternoon, James and Lily took the whole younger team minus the Ignis twins to the Ignis’ work room, where all the other agents were waiting for them.

“Sit down guys,” said Lykos, who was already waiting for them alongside his sister, “this will be a  _ long _ night.”

Once everyone had gotten comfortable, the older teens asking for a cup of coffee after hearing what Lykos said, James got the ball rolling.

“Harry, earlier today you asked your mum what we were studying so much,” he said, “we, and with that I mean everyone here apart from you guys, decided that we should come clean and tell you everything.” He paused, letting his words sink in before starting the explanation.

“Some months before you were born, a supposed prophecy was made to Albus Dumbledore, it said this:  _ ‘The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…’ _ ” He told them, pausing once again to let them digest that.

“This prophecy could have applied to one out of two boys” Lily continued her husband’s explanation, “obviously, no one here believes it to be true, but two men did, Voldemort and Dumbledore.”

“Voldemort was told the first two lines of the prophecy by Severus Snape, and decided that you were the child of prophecy, so the night of Halloween, 1981, he decided to attack your family,” spoke Noctus this time, “luckily, neither you nor your parents died that night. Sadly, neither did Voldemort, he was just disembodied when the killing curse rebounded from your forehead and back to him.”

“He had made abominations called Horcrui, or Horcrux in singular, which kept him anchored to this plane of existence. For now, we have managed to track all of them down and recover two.” They were told by Tenebrae.

By now, all of the teens were struck speechless, Hermione was hugging Harry as tightly as she could, and the boy had a thoughtful expression on his face.

“He won’t leave us alone until he’s truly dead, will he?” He asked, “is that why I’m being trained? To defeat him?”

“Not exactly kid,” spoke up Lykos, “we  _ all _ were being trained as a precaution. So if any of us ever found themselves pitted against Death Eaters, or Voldemort himself, we would almost assuredly win the encounter.”

Harry just nodded and remained thoughtful, Hermione still hugging him.

“I guess we should keep training then, don’t you think?” He asked his team with a grin, “we may have a Dark Lord to finish off after all.”

Hermione lifted her head from its hiding spot on his chest, looking at him with wide eyes, shiny with unshed tears. “You’re not scared?” She asked him.

“Hermione, I’m terrified! But I know that I will have everyone here watching my back if he ends up coming back.”

“Damn right, kid!” Came McCree’s voice, “if that snake faced idiot ever comes back, you can be sure I’ll put a bullet in between his eyes before he can wave his wand!”

“Get in line, Jesse, I’m pretty sure everyone here wants to get a shot at Voldemort.” Said Hanzo.

“Well, now that the explanations are out of the way,” said Noctus, “I guess we have to decide what we will do going forward.”

“We should keep hunting the Horcrui down. If we can’t clean them all before he comes back, at least we will have them all on hand.” Said Winston.

“I suggest we also look into finding some kind of metal that can deflect the Killing Curse without affecting someone behind it,” added Torbjörn, “I would like to make sure we are all protected from that, just in case Angela is not near enough to bring you back.”

“I think we should get some tactics training too,” said Dora, the rest of the younger team nodding, “we want to help.”

“You will, but I think we have a bigger problem right now,” Tenebrae told her, frowning at the globe floating over the table.

The Soul Shard in Albania was moving,  _ fast _ .

“Well, shit.”

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“Is-is he back?” Whispered Mei in the ensuing silence, looking worriedly at the moving red dot.

“No,” came Tenebrae’s answer, still looking at the globe, “or at least not truly. I made the map so the point would turn purple if he was back in his own body, or one made specifically for him at least. I think he’s possessing someone though.”

“How many ways are there for him to truly regain a body?” Asked Genji.

“I can think of two right now,” said Noctus thoughtfully, “I doubt he would go for one of them if he’s possessing a body. It takes too much power and he would need to already be in an homunculus beforehand. The other option would be with the Philoso-” He cut himself off, his eyes widening, “James, call Frank! Now!”

James did as told, taking out his mirror and calling the Longbottoms.

“Guys?” Came Frank’s groggy voice from the mirror, “what’s wrong?”

“Frank, listen closely, the main Soul Shard is on the move” said Noctus seriously, waking the Auror up immediately, “we need you to learn if the Flamels are still living in Devon and get us in contact with them, I suspect the bastard is after the Philosopher’s Stone to get a body back. We  _ can’t  _ allow that to happen! If he does get the Stone, we would be going against an immortal Voldemort with an even bigger life insurance than the Horcrui!”

“I’ll go right now! If he does come back though, we may need to leave the country.”

“If he somehow manages it we will get you and the rest of our people out of Britain as fast as possible to regroup here, don’t worry! Now go!” Said Noctus, cutting the connection.

“What do we do now?” Asked Angela.

“Now, we wait.”

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The next morning they got a call from Frank, two other people were beside him.

“Guys, meet Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel, master alchemists.”

Once the situation had been explained to the alchemists, they confirmed Noctus’ assessment that, should Voldemort get a hold of the Stone, he would be pretty much immortal. It was agreed that they would get the Stone out of Gringotts, warning the goblins about the bastard trying to get it, and Lena would pick them up in London, so they could go into hiding in Watchpoint until Voldemort was dealt with for good. They would be a great addition to their research team, and were very interested in what they had already done.

Voldemort wouldn’t catch them unawares again, they would be ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know down in the comments! Also, if you spot any mistakes we overlooked, don't hesitate to let me know! Ir's the only way I'll get better after all.
> 
> Some new additions join the team! I wasn't planning on adding the Flamels to Watchpoint, but when I started writing about them going into hiding so Voldy couldn't go after them, I thought about them helping with developing the new metal and helping with the research on Horcrui, and here we are!
> 
> I've got nothing more to add for this chapter, so I'll see you on the next one. or next story! Or the comments for other stories, who knows?!


	10. Awakenings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis here with a new chapter! As always, thanks to Tyrannic_Puppy for betaing this!
> 
> Also, a big thank you to everyone who's been subscribing, bookmarking, leaving kudos and commenting, it means a lot!
> 
> I'll talk with you at the end so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

A couple of days later, the Flamels had joined them at Watchpoint and took like fish to water to the general atmosphere of the place, immediately engaging Winston and Angela in a discussion about their recent discoveries.

Harry and Hermione, both the ever inquisitive minds they were, asked the alchemists to see their most famed creation one day while in the lab. Nicholas just chuckled a bit and took out of his pocket a beautiful, blood-red gem with a shiny golden nucleus, the Philosopher’s Stone.

Both kids stared awestruck at the legendary artifact.

“Want to see how it works?” Asked Nicholas, amused.

The children could only nod in answer, still looking at the stone.

“Winston, do you have some lead we could use?” The famous alchemist asked the scientist.

“Not here in the lab, no. But maybe Torbjörn has some in his workshop, I’ll give him a call.”

Soon, the engineer and his daughter came into the room pulling a cart carrying some pieces of scrap.

Nicholas simply walked towards them, picked up a random piece and touched it to the stone. From the point of contact, the piece slowly started to turn golden, until the alchemist ended up with a big piece of gold in his hands.

“Do you two want to try?” He offered them with a smile, extending the stone to them.

Harry and Hermione shared a look, before the girl nudged her friend forwards.

“You first,” she told him, “it was your idea.”

“Are you sure?” He asked her. Seeing her nod, he reached for the gem.

Just before his hand touched the Stone, something that hadn’t happened since his first lesson in the shooting range awakened once again.

His emerald-colored magical aura  _ flared _ , bright golden tendrils of magic coming from the Stone, fusing with it and forcing his body to shift into the golden condor.

The majestic form reacted to the Stone’s magic. His golden feathers seemed to light up with their own power, his claws sharpening and becoming a deep obsidian, his whole body doubled in size. Harry gave a powerful cry before reabsorbing his aura, the fused magic coming with it, and assuming his normal form once again.

He looked at the Stone in the alchemist’s hand with a deadpan face before speaking.

“Something tells me that wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?” He asked Nicholas, who simply shook his head, his eyes open wide in astonishment.

The boy nodded, deadpan expression still on his face, before looking at Hermione. “You do it, the thing doesn’t seem to like me much,” he said, before walking back towards her, “and we’re definitely checking what the magic did to the condor!”

Hermione only nodded before walking forward, slowly reaching towards the Stone.

Now, normally, magic only reacted weirdly around Harry.

Not this time though.

Just as her hand closed around the Stone, her own periwinkle blue aura flared up, absorbing the bright red magic the artifact was sending out. The newly absorbed magic forced her body to shift into the lioness, reshaping it into something else.

Her tawny fur turned a beautiful golden color, her claws and fangs turning a brilliant ivory. She felt some discomfort coming from her back, as if some extra weight had been added to it. Turning, she saw a pair of beautiful, golden feathered wings folded at her sides. She gave a mighty roar and reabsorbed her aura, the new magic being absorbed with it, before shifting into her human self.

She looked at the stone in her hand, before hearing Harry’s voice behind her.

“I guess this makes you the second one with a magical form, huh?”

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“So, let me get this straight,” said Dora that afternoon, sitting in the Potter’s backyard with the rest of the team, “you touched the Philosopher’s Stone, it made your magic react and flare up, and changed one of your animagus forms? For both of you?” She asked, torn between excitement at the possibility of them all getting magical forms, and annoyance at having missed the show earlier.

“Basically,” Harry said thoughtfully, “though no one could explain what happened, master Flamel said it was the first time the Stone reacted like that.”

“Maybe it had something to do with the condor?” Suggested Susan, sitting in between Pharah and Rose.

“Then why would it have reacted to me?” Came Hermione’s answer, “I think it has more to do with the pill for multiple animagus forms, maybe one of the ingredients reacted with the Stone’s composition?”

“I’m not so sure Hermione,” said Lykos, a frown marring his face, “whatever reacted has to be something you two have in common that neither both Flamels or Dumbledore have, and Harry didn’t need to take the pill, being a metamorphmagus.”

“What the pill does replicates the ability though,” argued his sister, “so maybe it  _ is _ one of the components of the pill reacting to whatever master Flamel used to make the Stone.”

“There’s only one way to test it, I guess,” said Brigitte, resting her head on the female twin’s shoulder, “we will just have to get close to the Stone and see if it reacts with us too.”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Lily was looking through the glass at her son and the girl she was sure one day would be her daughter-in-law. They were both meditating, their auras flaring around them and dancing around each other, the emerald, periwinkle, red and gold meshing beautifully together. Many different scanners and cameras were around the room, focused on them.

_ ‘Every time,’  _ she thought to herself,  _ ‘every time something happens, you’re in the middle of it, my little lion. Why did you have to to inherit your Dad’s penchant for trouble?’ _

After the Stone had reacted to them, and before allowing the rest of the younger team to test their theory, they wanted to check what changes the reaction had prompted on them, be it their modified animagus forms, or their normal selves.

Mei and Perenelle had done some tests with the components for both the Stone and the multimagus pill. They had discovered that it had indeed been one of the components of the pill that had reacted, more precisely the mandrake’s essence, something they still couldn’t explain just how was naturally in a metamorphmagus’ bloodstream.

But the magical animagus form wasn’t the only effect.

The Stone’s magic seemed to have awakened  _ something _ inside the kids. Their cores were bigger now, and they seemed to be  _ creating _ magic instead of just absorbing it from their surroundings. It had also seemed to affect their senses, enhancing them.

She was brought back to the present by Gwendolyn Granger, Hermione’s mum, coming to stand beside her.

“These two really are something,” Her friend said, looking towards their children, “how long do you think it will be before they get together?” She asked with a smirk, turning to look at her.

Lily chuckled before answering. “I doubt it will be long,” she said, “I just hope you can keep David back before he threatens Harry, we both know how badly that could go.”

Gwen laughed loudly at that, “your Harry would wipe the floor with my poor husband without effort!”

They both laughed for a couple of minutes, letting all the stress that had built up lately go.

“Do you think he will come back? Voldemort I mean.” Said the brunette.

“I’m pretty sure he will,” Lily sighed, before adding with a small smile, “but with the team they are building, not counting everyone here at Watchpoint, I doubt he will have a chance of really hurting our kids.”

“I hope you are right, Lils,” the shorter woman said, “I hope you’re right.”

With that, they once again turned towards their kids, watching the beautiful dance of their auras.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

_ Harry was sitting in his mindscape, reaching out towards his different forms when he felt it. _

_ “Harry?” Came his pretty best friend’s voice from behind him. _

_ “Hermione?” He asked, turning, and there she was, standing and looking around, “how did you get here?” _

_ “I don’t know,” she answered, “I was in my mind when suddenly I wasn’t anymore and found myself here. Could it be our magics?” _

_ Harry came closer and hugged the girl to his chest. “Whatever it was, I have no problems with it.” He said. _

_ Hermione felt herself blush before tightly hugging the boy back. “Neither do I.” _

_ After a long while, they reluctantly pulled back before Hermione got a thoughtful look on her face. _

_ “Do you think we could establish something like this with everyone else?” She asked him, “It could be a great tool if we made it so it wasn’t necessary to be meditating, or physically close as we are outside now.” _

_ “I think we may be able,” started Harry, “but I would like it if we could actually also have this private link, just between us two, o-only if that’s not a problem with you, of course.” He said, blushing heavily. _

_ A small smile broke on Hermione’s face, her cheeks red before she hugged her boy again. _

_ “Not at all” _

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Days later, and once they were completely sure there hadn’t been any downsides to it, all the members of the younger team got to interact with the Stone.

With Dora and Susan it had the expected effect. Their magical auras flared up, Dora’s in pink and Susan’s in yellow, and one of their forms became magical. Dora’s eagle becoming a Thunderbird, while Susan’s black panther became a nundu.

With Pharah and Bri though, it had an unexpected, but exciting side effect.

They didn’t expect the Stone to even react to themselves, to be honest, they didn’t have magic in their bodies after all, so it came as a surprise to all when from their bodies erupted a quite powerful magical aura, Pharah’s an intense blue while Bri’s was a soft red.

Soon, their bodies shifted into one of their forms, which too was changed into something else. Phara’s golden eagle changed into an Stymphalian Bird, while Bri’s Arctic fox became a white kitsune, a nine-tailed fox.

“But... _ How?”  _ Asked Pharah once they were back in their human forms, looking down at her hands.

“We have no idea, my dear,” said a wide-eyed Perenelle, “never in all our years of life have we seen the Stone react like this. Even less so with a non-magical.”

“I want to try something.” Harry said thoughtfully, handing Pharah his practice wand. Hermione realized what her friend was doing and handed Bri her own.

When sparks flew out of both wands, the answer became clear.

Somehow, the Stone had given both girls a powerful magical core, one in the same league as the rest of the younger team.

“I guess there will be more tests done?” Asked Bri, an excited smile on her face. They had magic now, how cool was that?!

“There will, we have to check that your cores are healthy after all, but I think it would be better if you all rest for the rest of day.”

Harry and Hermione asked the rest to go by the Potter’s place that afternoon to discuss a possible tool they had discovered.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

_ “So, how does it feel to suddenly have magic, girls?” Asked Dora. _

_ When they had arrived at the Potter home, Harry and Hermione had explained to them what had happened while they were meditating and wanted to try and see if they could create a link between the whole team. A couple of hours of intense meditation later and they had managed to set up a ‘hub’ for their collective mindscapes to share. _

_ Right now, they were surrounded by their different animal forms who were either sleeping or playing with each other. _

_ “It’s weird, a good weird,” said Pharah, “it feels like suddenly having a battery in the middle of your chest, like you’re never running out of energy again.” _

_ “Well, I love the feeling myself Pharah!” Said Bri, her excitement not having abated since that morning, “do you think you could teach us how to use it though, guys?” _

_ “Of course we will!” Said Hermione, “magic is extremely easy to control once you know what to look for. You two knowing Occlumency already should make the work even easier!” _

_ “I’m wondering,” Dora said thoughtfully, “if we’re connecting our minds, could I, say, send my memories of something to any of you?” She asked. _

_ “It should be possible, in theory,,” said Lykos, sitting beside his sister and petting his wolf form’s head, “if we can extract them and place them in a pensieve, why shouldn’t we be able to just skip the middle man when the minds are already connected? That’s the only function the pensieve does after all.” He told them, before closing his eyes and concentrating. _

_ Suddenly they were seeing themselves, sitting and watching Lykos and Harry spar. _

_ “I guess it does work.” _

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

James looked out the door of the backyard and saw the kids meditating, their magical auras illuminating the scene.

  
He smiled,  _ ‘if Voldemort does manage to come back, he won’t know what hit him!’  _ He thought to himself before closing the door and going to their bedroom. What could Lily want to tell him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you spot any mistakes we overlooked, don't hesitate on letting me know! It's the only way I'll get better after all.
> 
> We have the team becoming even more OP, and some little Harmony developments finally! I know it took long, and it will be some chapters before they actually get together, but they are finally here!
> 
> I've got nothing more to add, so I'll see you in my next chapter or story! Or the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	11. Hunting a Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis here with another chapter! As always, thanks to Tyrannic_Puppy for betaing this.
> 
> Also a big thank you to everyone that has been bookmarking, subscribing, leaving kudos and commenting. It means a lot guys!
> 
> I'll talk with you at the end so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

Six figures, clad completely in black, dropped outside the wards of a manor in Britain.

_ “Ok guys, do you hear me?”  _ Came a female voice from their intercoms.

“Loud and clear, Sombra, loud and clear.” Said one of the figures.

_ “Ok, you know the plan. Get in there, take the package and get out, and don’t be seen. Hræsvelgr says that this one seems to be the first the bastard made, so be careful when coming in contact with it.”  _ Sombra told them,  _ “remember to confirm when you’re out so Tracer can go and retrieve you, I’ll send Ninja the rendezvous coordinates then.” _

“Understood.” He answered, “Stag! You have the Ward Buster.”

‘Stag’ walked forward, taking a piece of stone covered in symbols from his pocket.

Placing it against the edge of the wards, the stone came to life, opening a hole big enough for them to walk through.

“Ok, we’re inside the wards.”

_ “I see you. Cowboy, there should be a door noreast of your location. It should take you into the manor’s ballroom.” _

They quickly found the door, but before ‘Cowboy’ could reach out and open it, the only female figure in the group stopped him.

“It’s locked,” she told him, “and has a set of alarms over it, let me and Moonchild deal with them.”

“Ok, Doe, go for it.”

It took them ten minutes of continual spellcasting, but they managed to take down the security measures on the door.

“Sombra, we’re inside the manor, where to?”

_ “That’s the problem Cowboy. The wards got in the way of  _ _ Hræsvelgr’s scans.” _

“So we will have to scour the whole place?” Asked one of the figures.

_ “Afraid so, Grimm. There’s no other option right now.” _

“Then let’s stop talking and start looking. The more time we lose, the bigger the chance we’re seen.” Said ‘Moonchild’, walking towards the only door out of the room.

Just as they rounded the corner of the hallway, the plan went down the drain.

“Who are you people?” Asked a female voice from behind them.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

‘Grimm’ turned around and came face to face with Narcissa Malfoy, one of the manor’s occupants.

“Siri?” She gasped, her hand rising to cover her mouth at seeing her cousin’s eyes behind the mask, “what are you doing here?” She asked him.

“Quick,” said ‘Cowboy,’ “stun her!”

“Wait!” She said, closing her eyes and raising her arms to cover her face.

The sleeves of her pajamas slid back, revealing unmarred, creamy white skin.

“Stag,” ‘Cowboy’ started confusedly, “didn’t you guys say that Death Eaters had a mark on their forearms?”

“Yes they do, Cowboy.” Answered the other man, his eyes focused on Narcissa’s arm.

“Cissy, I need you to answer me this. Were you ever a follower of Voldemort?” Asked ‘Grimm,’ his cover now blown.

“Never,” came the blonde’s answer, “Lucius was, but I never believed the man’s lies.”

‘Cowboy’ looked at her suspiciously from behind ‘Grimm’ before calling their hacker.

“Sombra, what can you find in our files for Narcissa Malfoy?”

_ “She was the only one among the accused Death Eaters that could truly demonstrate her innocence. She offered to testify under veritaserum but was stopped from doing so by the Death Eaters that walked free. Instead she showed her forearms to the court, to prove she didn’t have the Dark Mark. She’s clean, Cowboy, there’s no doubt of that.” _

“Received. Thanks Sombra.”

With the two cousins, a different conversation was taking place.

“Sirius, please, you have to help me!” The blonde woman asked of her cousin, “I can’t keep on living with Lucius, and my son is turning into a carbon copy of his father with every passing day. You have to get me out of here!” She pleaded, her eyes shiny with tears.

‘Grimm’ looked back towards the rest. ‘Cowboy’ just sighed before calling their hacker once again.

“Sombra, change of plans, this is now a rescue mission too.”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

“What are you looking for, anyway?” Narcissa asked them once they had confirmation from base for the added objective.

“Voldemort entrusted your husband with something for safe-keeping. We need to get whatever it was.” ‘Stag’ told her.

“Only one thing comes to mind, follow me.” She told them, before swiftly walking towards the stairs.

She led them towards the door to Lucius’ studio. “He keeps it here,” she told them, “it’s a black book that says ‘T. M. Riddle’ in small gold letters on the rear cover.”

‘Doe’ walked forward and scanned the door, “it has some simple traps,” she told them after seeing the results, “it won’t take me long.”

Once ‘Doe’ had opened the door, and making sure there weren’t any further traps, the group made their way inside the room, ‘Ninja’ taking the locating crystal out of his pocket.

“Found it,” he said after a couple of minutes, standing before one of the bookshelves, “I don’t want to touch it though, it  _ feels _ evil.”

“Not surprising considering what it is,” said ‘Stag’ coming to stand beside him, putting on a pair of dragonhide gloves before grabbing the book, “at least it isn’t a founder’s relic this time.”

“Sombra, we got the package and are making our way out.”

_ “Copy that Cowboy, I’m sending the coordinates to Ninja right now!” _

“Coordinates received, Sombra, need confirmation if they are correct.” Said ‘Ninja’, reciting the numbers through the intercom.

_ “They are correct Ninja, now get out of there!” _

They started to make their way out of the manor, but before they reached the ballroom so they could exit, Narcissa stopped in thought.

“Can you give me a couple of minutes? There’s something I must do.” She asked of them.

At their nods, she walked down the hallway towards her bedroom and retrieved one of her gloves.

“Dobby!” She called in a whisper.

With a  _ POP, _ a pretty battered house-elf appeared before her, looking at the ground.

“Mistress Cissy calls Dobby?”

She extended the glove in her hand to the elf. “Here Dobby,” she told him, “you’re free. Leave the manor or follow me if you want, but I didn’t want you to stay under Lucius once I was gone.”

The house-elf looked at the glove with wide eyes, wider than normal at least, before hesitantly reaching his hand towards. When she had it in his hand, he rushed forward and hugged Narcissa’s legs.

“Thank you, Mistress Cissy, thank you so much!”

The blonde smiled before kneeling and returning the elf’s hug.

“You have nothing to thank me for, Dobby.”

The elf pulled back, and snapping his fingers, he was gone.

Narcissa quickly changed clothes and left her room for the last time. She was finally leaving this accursed place

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

By the time they arrived at the rendezvous, the airship had landed and was waiting for them, Tracer standing beside the cabin.

“Climb in luvs! Time to get back!” She told them cheerily before flashing to her seat.

Once in the air, the whole group removed their masks and took a deep breath.

“That could have gone a lot worse.” Said James, hugging his wife to his side.

“Yes,” she agreed, placing a hand over her belly, “we were lucky it was Narcissa and not Lucius.”

“What were you doing in the ground floor, anyways?” Sirius asked his cousin, “isn’t your room upstairs?”

“Please!” Scoffed Narcissa, “I haven’t slept in the same room as Lucius since the night we were married. Not that he minds, he prefers another type of company.” She told them.

”Okay, that’s a bit too much information that I didn’t need about Lucius,” sighed James, “though it does explain some of the looks he sent my way while we were in school.” He added thoughtfully.

“Prongs, I didn’t need that image.” Said a green-faced Sirius.

“Ok, that answers why you were downstairs, but doesn’t explain what you were doing awake.” Said Lily, a curious look on her face.

Narcissa just shrugged. “I have always been a light sleeper, and I was thirsty,” she told them, “now, will you tell me just why that book is so important?”

“Cissy, you are a Black, so I’m pretty sure you must know what a Horcrux is, correct?” James asked, seeing his cousin’s face pale at the mere word.

“Do you mean to tell me, Voldemort made a Horcrux?” She asked, her voice trembling.

“Not just one Cissy, he made five that we know of, and with this we have recovered three.” She was told.

“Five? Ok, now I’m sure he is a lunatic and an idiot, doesn’t he know that the more Horcrui you make the weaker you become?” She queried, flabbergasted.

“If he did, he didn’t care. He could access everyone of the marked Death Eaters’ magic through the Dark Mark, so he could keep the charade up.”

“Oh, that’s rich! So he isn’t even as powerful as he made himself to be!” Laughed Narcissa, it felt good to be with her family again, and she couldn’t wait to see Lucius’ face when he found out the truth about his ‘Lord.’ Thinking about the blond wizard brought a worrying thought to her mind.

“Sirius?” She caught the dog animagus’ attention, “officially I’m still married to Lucius, wouldn’t he be able to force me back to Britain?”

“Hmm,” he hummed thoughtfully, “I have an idea of how to stop it but, do you know if your marriage contract was like Bellatrix’s one?”

“Yes, they were identical, why?” She asked confused, how could her sister’s marriage contract help her?

“And how many children have you had with Lucius? Just the one?”

“Yes?” She answered dubiously, just what was her cousin thinking?

“Then I think we will be able to kill two birds with one stone.” He told her with a vindictive smirk.

“What do you mean?” She asked interested. Sirius may not show it much, but he was still raised a Black, and through that, was the epitome of what a Slytherin should be.

“Tell me, Cissy, do you know about the heir clause?”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Once they arrived at Watchpoint, Sirius immediately sent an owl to his Account Manager to set an appointment so he could nullify Narcissa’s marriage, giving her back the Black name in the process, and claim the Malfoy vaults as compensation.

Andromeda was happy to have her baby sister around again and it became common to see them chatting all around the base, making up for lost time.

Lily and James had gone to talk with Angela so she could confirm their hopes.

“James, Lily,” the medicine prodigy said, “I hope you have a couple of godparents picked and that Harry wants to be a big brother.” She told them.

“Does this mean that…?” Lily asked, her eyes full of hope.

“Congratulations Lily, you’re pregnant!” Angela told them with a beaming smile.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

The younger team was in their usual position for the afternoons, sitting in the backyard of the Potter’s place when Harry’s parents came through the door, and even though Lily’s eyes were red-rimmed, they had massive smiles on their faces.

“Mum?” Asked the raven haired boy, “what happened? Were you crying?”

“Oh, sweetie,” she said, kneeling to hug her son, “Harry, you’re having a baby brother or sister.”

Hermione squeed while Harry’s eyes widened, did he hear his Mum right? He was gonna be a big brother? He looked at his Dad for confirmation, and at his nod, he tightly hugged his Mum, his eyes closed and a big smile on his face.

“Congratulations!” Came Brigitte’s voice, “have you decided who’ll be the godparents yet?” She asked eagerly.

Lily chuckled at the teen’s enthusiasm, “not yet, we don’t even know if they’re a boy or a girl.”

“Lúcio, Lykos” said Harry from his mother’s arms, “can you two teach me some lullabies on the guitar?”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

That night, the planning session was considerably more lively than in the past few days. They had most of Voldemort’s Horcrui in their possession, and now a new life was getting ready to come into the world, it was a good cause for celebration. That didn’t mean they didn’t plan though.

“Classes at Hogwarts start tomorrow,” said Noctus, sitting at the table and touching the holographic globe enough times to make it focus on the castle, “as we know, there’s a Horcrux hidden inside,” he told them, pausing to let that sink in before adding, “next week will be your first deployment, we won’t be making it quiet though, you will go to Hogwarts in your armours as ‘guests’ for the entire time you need to finish your mission. You need to find that Horcrux and get it out of the castle as quickly as possible, are we clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Came Harry’s answer, “why aren’t we making it quiet though? Wouldn’t it be easier to just go in during the night, take the Horcrux and leave without anyone knowing?”

“Normally, I would agree with you Harry,” nodded Noctus, “but the wards around the castle messed with the scanner, so we don’t know  _ where _ in the castle the Horcrux is, so it will take you longer than one night to find it,” he answered, “now, you will be going in as students of the ‘Overwatch Battle Training Academy,’ the cover will be that Minerva invited you as guests, if someone asks the reason you give that, nothing else, ok?”

“Yes sir.” Came the chorus from the younger team.

“You will take your whole arsenal with you to be on the safe side,” said Torbjörn, “I’m making the last adjustments to your armours and they should be ready tomorrow. We still don’t have a Killing Curse resistant metal, but anything else, they will be able to resist.”

It was decided, the younger team would see their first mission during the next week, they would just have to hope to not get into too much trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you spot any mistakes we overlooked don't hesitate to let me know! It's the only was I'll get better after all.
> 
> This time I don't have much to say to be honest. Narcissa and Dobby are out of the Malfoy household, they got another Horcrux and Lily is pregnant, so a lot of good stuff happened in this chapter. Narcissa won't appear much though, she will come up from time to time, but this chapter may be her biggest role.
> 
> I've got nothing more to add, so I'll see you in my next chapter or story! Or the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	12. Setting an Example

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis here with another chapter! As always, thanks to Tyrannic_Puppy for betaing this.
> 
> Also a big thank you to everyone that has been bookmarking, subscribing, leaving kudos and commenting. It means a lot guys!
> 
> I'll talk with you at the end so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

The eight members of the younger team were sitting in the back of the ship, on their way to their first deployment.

Hermione couldn’t sit still, she kept checking her armour over and over, recalibrating her rifle’s scope, checking her ammo pouch, rereading their instructions, and starting all over again.

“Hermione, what's bothering you? You’re never this fidgety.” Asked Harry, looking at her with a slightly worried expression.

“It’s just, are we sure we are ready for a full-blown mission?” She asked in despair, “we haven’t had tactics training yet, and it’s the first time we’ve worn these new armours, and we are going in blind into the castle, and-”

“Hermione, calm down!” The boy cut her off, kneeling before her, “Nothing bad will happen, ok? Yes, it may be our first deployment, but everyone in the team has been training for at least five years,” he took hold of her hands, noticing how nice they felt in his own, “and even if that wasn’t enough, we can always use our intercoms to contact home and a team would be here in a couple of hours, so there’s nothing to worry about, ok?” He told her with a reassuring smile.

The bushy haired girl returned it sheepishly. “Sorry, I just can’t help worrying.”

“Look,” said Lykos from his seat, looking around at the rest, “let’s make a quick test of our systems to not come across surprises, would that help?”

Hermione nodded with relief, relaxing.

“Ok, let’s start with the essential one. Intercom test, can you all hear me?”

“I can.” Confirmed Harry.

“Me too.” Agreed Susan.

One by one, the rest confirmed reception and they went for the next system.

“Ok, try the magic channeling now, please?” He asked, doing so himself and making long claws in the black and red of his aura appear on his armour’s fingers, his sister doing the same.

Soon, the airship’s back was filled with multicolored lights from each of its occupants.

“Ok, channeling systems working. Lena, can we test intercom to Watchpoint without interference?”

“No problem, Lykos!” Came the reply from the cockpit.

“Sombra, Stag, can you hear me?” Asked Lykos through the intercom.

_ “Loud and clear Lobo! Me copias?” _ Came Sombra’s answer.

“Confirm reception Sombra, we are just testing systems.” Said Harry through his own mic.

_ “Good to hear your voice too Cobra!” _ Came James’ voice through the link,  _ “remember, if you ever get lost in the castle, call us. We loved just strolling around and discovered many secret passages over the years!”  _ He said,  _ “and, just as a recommendation, try and summon ‘The Marauders’ Map.’ It’s a little something Grimm, Moonchild and I made during our 5th year. If you manage to find it, the password is ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good’” _

“Received, Stag, we will look for it when we have time, sounds like a useful tool. Lobo out.” Said Lykos, cutting communication.

“Ok, that’s the last general system of our armours, the rest are unique for each of us.” He said aloud, in his mind he added,  _ ‘can you hear me?’ _

_ ‘Loud and clear!’  _ Came the chorus from their mental link.

“Attention!” Said Lena suddenly from the pilot’s seat, “this is your captain speaking! We are on final approach to Hogsmeade.”

“That’s our cue everyone!” Said Harry with a toothy grin, taking hold of his katana and placing it on his hip, his gun on the other side.

“You may now power on your electronic devices.” Continued Tracer her ‘pilot’ routine.

Hermione took her rifle, checked that the safety was locked and hung it on her back. Beside her, Brigitte grabbed her whip-hammer and hung it on her back too, her handgun going to her thigh.

Harry loaded his shuriken into his armour’s slots and sheathed his daggers on his lower back.

“Weather is mostly cloudy, as is common in Scotland this time of the year, and all year round to be honest.” Tracer went on.

Lykos sheathed his twin katanas on his back, his twin guns going to his lower back and loaded his throwing knives up his arms. At his side, Rose put her twin daggers on her hips, her own twin guns going to her back, her rope darts being attached to her wrists.

Susan put on her quiver and hung her bow alongside it, making sure they wouldn’t constrict her motions.

Phara hung her grenade-thrower on her back and her hand gun on her left thigh, while Dora placed her twin guns on her hips.

“Everyone, raise your helmets, let’s give them the full show!” Said Lykos with a smirk, his armour closing around his head.

One by one, the younger team put on their helmets, Harry and Hermione exchanging a last smile before the armour closed around their heads.

“Ok, people, confirm codenames. Lobo.” Said Lykos from behind his wolf-shaped helmet.

“Aguila.” Said Rose, one of the two eagle helmeted armours, hers having black details.

“Eagle.” Pharah, the other eagle helmet, this one with blue details.

“Monkey.” Dora.

“Leopard.” Brigitte.

“Panther.” Susan.

“Crane.” Hermione.

“And Cobra.” Harry.

“We will be landing in three, two, one.” Said Tracer, before they all felt the shake of the ship coming in contact with solid ground.

“Thank you for flying with Overwatch airlines.”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Headmistress Minerva McGonagall was notified by the castle when the new arrivals were waiting outside the doors of the Great Hall, just in time for the end of lunch.

“Your attention, if you please,” she addressed the students, standing up, “as of today, and for an undetermined amount of time, Hogwarts will serve as host for a group of eight students from the ‘Overwatch Battle Training Academy’ from an undisclosed location. Let’s give them a warm welcome.”

As she finished, the doors to the hall opened and in marched the eight young agents through the middle of the hall before coming to a stop ten paces away from the head table.

“Helmets! Off!” Called the leader.

The helmets of every armour opened and receded into their torsos.

“Headmistress McGonagall, thank you for receiving us in your beautiful school,” said a softly smiling Lykos, “and I would like to request of you a moment so we can answer some of the students’ questions regarding our presence.”

Minerva looked at her staff, and seeing no objections,, allowed Lykos’ request.

The young man smiled once again and nodded, turning towards the hall at large, the rest of the team following his motions, “you heard your headmistress, if any of you has any questions, now would be the best moment to ask them.”

“Will you be attending classes with us?” Asked a seventh year Ravenclaw girl.

Lykos chuckled a bit before answering. “Sadly, no,” he told her with a smile, “we have our own schedule to keep up with, so our training doesn’t get interrupted during our stay here, any other questions?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way but, what is the Overwatch Academy?” Asked a third year Hufflepuff boy.

“Our academy is just what the name says, a battle academy. We are trained since the moment we join in both magical and non-magical fighting techniques. Martial arts, guns, throwing blades, bow and arrow, dueling techniques are just some of the things we have been trained in.” Said Harry.

“Can’t be that good then, if they are teaching muggle stuff, they must really be desperate.” Came a voice from the Slytherin table.

“Mister Malfoy!” Called Septima Vector, the Slytherin head of house, “if you have nothing useful to add, then please refrain from such idiotic comments! That will be 25 points from Slytherin!”

“When my father hears about this…” He grumbled lowly to himself, not knowing he could be heard pretty easily.

“If you can’t even accept the consequences for your actions by yourself, how do you expect the ambitions you were placed in the house of Slytherin for, to become reality?” Asked Hermione.

“No one asked for your opinion! Who are you to talk to me in such a way, anyways?” He arrogantly asked of her.

“Hermione Granger, I’m what you here in Britain call a ‘muggleborn.’” Came the bushy-haired girl’s answer.

“How dare you even address someone of my breeding, you mudblood?!” The blond-haired boy snarled at her, standing up from his seat.

Harry’s whole body tensed.

“MISTER MALFOY!” Cried his head of house, “THAT WILL BE 100 POINTS FROM SLYTHERIN AND DETENTION WITH MISTER FILCH!”

“What did you just call her?” Came the whisper in the ensuing silence.

“You heard me! She’s nothing more than a filthy mudblood that shouldn’t even exist.” Malfoy sneered, not listening to the professor.

In a quick dash, Harry moved from his position beside Lykos to stand in front of Malfoy, his helmet coming on in the process, before backhanding the bigoted idiot with enough strength to send him flying across the hall. Three wrist movements in fast succession later, and Draco Malfoy was pinned to one of the stone walls by his shoulders and groin, the last shuriken almost ending the Malfoy line then and there.

“I’m going to be  _ extremely _ clear with you, Malfoy,” said Harry, approaching the trapped boy looking every bit a dangerous predator as he unsheathed his katana, the eyes of his helmet glowing the same eerie green of his now visible aura, his armour not being able to channel the sheer amount of magic he was releasing in his anger, “you mess with one, you mess with all of us, and if you  _ ever _ utter that damned word in front of me once again, or even worse, say it to  _ her _ ever again, you will wish for death’s sweet release, understood?” He told him in an icy cold voice.

A nod and the sound of liquid hitting the ground was his only answer.

“Let this be a warning for everyone,” said a stone faced Lykos. Gone were the warm young people they had been when they arrived, now all of them had claws coming out of their armour’s hands, “we may look young, some of us even your age, but we are warriors, trained to fight the worst the world has to offer, you would all do well to remember that.”

Harry recalled the shuriken and turned around, their point made, before he heard Malfoy’s shouted incantation.

“ _ Diffindo! _ ” Shouted the blond, hoping to maim Harry.

In a quick movement, the raven-haired boy turned around and backhanded the incoming spell, turning it into a shower of sparks.

“Big mistake.” He said darkly, before dashing towards Malfoy, sword in hand.

He quickly started to cut at different points of Malfoy’s clothes without ever touching skin. The seams in the shoulders of his robes, a quick slash at the side of the leg of his pants, the buttons of his shirt…

On and on he cut, until Malfoy was standing naked and with his wand on the floor, which was quickly taken by Harry.

“I hope this time you learn something.” He said over his shoulder before walking towards the others, handing Malfoy’s wand to Professor Vector as he passed.

“Headmistress, if you would be so kind as to have someone escort us to wherever we are staying, we would be most thankful.” Said Lykos, the warrior completely gone and the same young man that introduced them standing in his place.

“Filius, if you would?” She asked of the charms professor, who quickly nodded.

“If you would follow me.” Said the small Charms Master with a smile.

“Just a second Professor,” said Rose, turning to look towards the students, “if you have any other questions, you can ask us anytime you see us around!” She told them brightly before they left the hall.

Once the group left, everyone turned to look at Malfoy. There couldn’t be a clearer message than that.  _ Don’t cross us, or this is the least we will do. _

Only time would tell if everyone would understand that message.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

“Good warning you left them, I hope no one is blind enough to not see it!” Chuckled the small dueler.

“Is that your goblin heritage talking, Professor?” Asked an amused Lykos.

“No one can hear us here Lykos, everyone is still inside the Great Hall, so don’t stand on formalities!” He told him mock-sternly.

“I’m sorry Uncle Fi,” said the young man with a laugh, “but we aren’t as alone as you think, we are being followed by five people right now.” He told the Professor with a smile.

“Should we stop them?” Asked Harry, looking up at the only other male on their team.

“Considering one of them is Neville, I don’t think so,” he said, “you can come out by the way! Why don’t you come with us and introduce yourselves?” He said, looking over his shoulder.

Their tail came out from around the corner behind them, all looking at the ground except for one. Neville was looking straight at them and smirking.

“Do you think we could do the introductions once we arrive wherever you are staying?”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Once inside the guest quarters they had been assigned, they all took seats around a table and Lykos got the ball rolling.

“Ok, so, Neville we already know, but who are you people?” He asked, looking at the other students.

Apart from Neville, there were the Hufflepuff third year who had asked them a question, a pair of dark-skinned twins and a young Hufflepuff first year.

The older boy, seeing that neither of the girls wanted to start and that the Overwatch people already knew Neville, decided to bite the bullet.

“Hello,” he said, extending his hand to the group, “I’m Cedric Diggory.”

He shook hands with every member of the team before sitting down again.

Brigitte saw the hesitant faces of the girls and decided to ease their fears a little.

“Don’t worry,” she told them with a warm smile, “except from putting down Malfoy, most of what we did out there was for show, Neville can tell you the kind of stuff we do most of the time!”

“Maybe if we introduce ourselves first? We’re at leave, right?” Asked Harry, looking towards Lykos.

“Yes, there’s no problem, the idea is to blend in after all,” said Lykos before turning towards the girls with a soft smile, “Lykos Ignis, at your services. The girl at my side is my twin sister, Rose.” Said girl smiled brightly and gave them a little wave.

“Fareeha Amari, call me Pharah.” Said the blue and gold armoured girl with a nod.

“Brigitte Lindholm, or Bri if you want.” She introduced herself.

“Nymphadora Tonks, use my first name and they will never find the body. Just call me Dora.” The female metamorphmagus told them with a smirk.

“I’m Susan Bones!” Chimed in the only redhead among them with a toothy smile.

“I don’t know if you heard me earlier, but I’m Hermione Granger.” Said the bushy haired girl with a small smile.

“And I’m Harry Potter, nice to meet you, you four!” Said the raven haired boy, hugging Hermione to his side, eliciting a blush from the girl.

“I’m Parvati Patil.” Said one of the two dark-skinned twins.

“And I’m Padma.” Chimed the other.

“I’m Hannah Abbott.” Added the blonde Hufflepuff.

“And me you already know! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to Hogwarts?” Neville asked, curiously looking at his friends.

“The agents sprung this on us last week, and we have been preparing since then, so we didn’t have time to tell you, sorry Nev.” Said a sheepish Harry before turning towards the newcomers, “but I guess you had other questions? After the show we put on earlier, I doubt many would have willingly followed us to be honest.” He asked them.

“What’s with the armour?” Blurted out Padma, “I’ve never heard of enchantment work like them, and Harry’s seemed to react by itself when he attacked Malfoy.” She clarified.

“That would be because they  _ aren’t _ enchanted,” answered a chuckling Lykos, amused by the wide-eyed looks from their guests, “these armours were made for each of us by Bri’s father, Torbjörn, and some of the scientists at the base. They originally made one for Harry because he was calling on his magical aura instinctually during training, and they wanted to see if there was a way for him to easily channel that energy, they expanded from there to make us our own.”

“What about your helmets?” Came the second question, this time from Parvati, “why animals? And why  _ those _ animals specifically?”

“In most cases, they are our fighting styles,” Harry told them, “the only different one in that regard is Lykos, he is a Cobra, like me, but the wolf helmet fits more with his role in the team and his personality.”

“And the weapons? Are those muggle too?” Asked Cedric. He became interested in them when he saw them in use.

“Yes, though they are made so we can channel our magic through them, just like our armour. That’s what happened in the hall earlier, actually. When Malfoy insulted Hermione, we all lost a bit of control over our aura, Harry the most among us, and our armour channeled it into the claws,” Rose said, showing them said claws again, “we can do the same with all our weapons.”

“Can anyone join the Academy?” Shyly asked Hannah.

“That question is a hard one,” chuckled Harry, “most of us have lived at the Academy most of our lives and started training at least five years ago. What I do know though, is that anyone can try and join Overwatch. If you tried to join young, they may send you to the same academy as us, or they may reject you, it all depends on what you can do.”

They chatted for a bit longer before their guests had to leave for their classes and they were left alone in their suite.

“Well,” started Lykos, “I suggest we get out of our armour and just do our thing before meeting here again later to report home what’s happened.”

“Agreed,” Harry said, “I want to take a shower too, just being in the presence of that idiot made me feel unclean.” He told them, rising up.

Everyone followed him and left towards their respective rooms to unpack and rest after their flight. They would be sharing with a partner since there weren’t enough rooms in the suite. Lykos and Harry shared one room, Hermione and Susan another, Rose and Bri the next, and Dora and Phara the last.

After his shower, Harry dressed in the wolf t-shirt he got from Reinhardt, the jeans and belt he got from Jesse, a pair of tennis shoes and the leather jacket he got from Ana and Pharah, picked up his guitar and left to sit in the main room to play for a bit.

Hermione came out of her room soon after, wearing a white shirt with a stag design she had  _ borrowed _ from Harry, this meaning it reached the middle of her thighs, and a pair of jeans. She sat beside Harry and rested her head on his shoulder, his own quickly resting on top of hers.

For now they would relax, they could focus on the mission later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you spot any mistakes we overlooked don't hesitate to let me know! It's the only was I'll get better after all.
> 
> You don't know how good it felt to write that scene with Malfoy! I know hat many will be thinking "WTF How strong is Harry?!" The answer is that, while he's quite strong because of the training with the sword, the daggers, etc, that backhand was strengthened by both, his armour and his magic, giving it quite a bit more power.
> 
> Also, did you catch the reference to "Zero Hour" ? I know it wasn't that hidden, but still.
> 
> I've got nothing more to add, so I'll see you in my next chapter or story! Or the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	13. The Hunt Starts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis here with another chapter! As always, thanks to Tyrannic_Puppy for betaing this.
> 
> Also a big thank you to everyone that has been bookmarking, subscribing, leaving kudos and commenting. It means a lot guys!
> 
> I'll talk with you at the end so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

“You mean to tell me that you got in trouble, not even half an hour after arriving?!” Asked a laughing James from the other side of their video-feed.

“The idiot insulted Hermione, and we all know how protective Harry can be.” Said Lykos, chuckling at the raven haired boy’s blushing face.

“Who was this little bigot, anyway?” Olivia asked in curiosity.

“Ah, yeah, about that…” Started a sheepish Harry, “is aunt Cissy around?”

They heard a suffering sigh from the side.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” They heard Narcissa’s voice, “how did he ever get sorted into Slytherin? He never had an ounce of cunning, for Merlin’s sake!” She said, “did you at least teach him a lesson?”

“I doubt he will forget it soon. Harry almost ended the Malfoy line with one of his shuriken, and then when Draco tried to use a cutting charm on him, well, let’s just say he was enjoying the breeze when we left the hall.” Dora told them in between giggles.

“Oh, that’s  _ rich! _ ” James said, doubling over in laughter. “So, how goes the hunt?” He asked after a calming breath.

“We will start looking tonight. The only problem I can see is that we will all have to move together since there’s only one crystal,” Lykos said, pausing for a bit before continuing, “any news on the main Shard?”

“After the Goblins dealt with whatever he was possessing and he fled? It’s still in Albania, why it’d go all the way back eludes me though.” Came the answer from Tenebrae.

“Well, at least he’s not too close anymore, with most of his followers here, I doubt there’s much he will be able to do for now.” Said Pharah thoughtfully.

“Anyway, any suggestions where we should start looking?” Said Harry, coming back to the matter at hand.

“Well, two out of the three Horcrui we have recovered so far have been founder relics, so unless you want to start looking for the fabled Chamber of Secrets, I would recommend asking the house ghosts when you can. Maybe the paintings too, I doubt they have changed since his time and they may have seen something.” Lily said thoughtfully.

“Okay, that works for information, but any places you recommend to start searching?” Asked Hermione.

“Wait, we’re being stupid,” said Brigitte with a deadpan look, “none of us was around back when the school was built, but we know someone that was.”

“Wait, really? Who?” Asked a confused Sirius.

Rose facepalmed while Lykos started to laugh.

“Of course, Fawkes!” They both called for their feathered friend at the same time.

In a blaze of fire, the red phoenix appeared mid-air before landing on the table in the middle of the group.

“Harry, you’re the only one of us that can understand him, so, if you please?” Lykos asked the raven-haired boy with a smirk.

Harry stood up and shifted into the golden condor. They still hadn’t found any mention of anything like his form anywhere, but after the Stone interacted with him, he had been able to use some of the typical phoenix abilities, like the healing tears or their ‘flashing’ power, though where Fawkes traveled in flames and Hedwig in snow, the golden condor seemed to use pure magic.

“He says that even if he doesn’t know where Voldemort hid that Horcrux, he can guide us to the Chamber of Secrets, he saw where they built it after all. He says that we should take something to protect ourselves though, seems like old Salazar left a guardian behind.” Harry told them when he turned back into himself, after a couple of minutes of talking.

“Well, he was a parselmouth through the Peverells, like us actually, so it may be something related to snakes. The only things that come to mind are either a basilisk, a gorgon or a runespoor, so be extremely careful. The worst among those three would be either the gorgon or the basilisk, at least with the runespoor you won’t die the moment you see it.” James said thoughtfully.

“If it was a runespoor it may be dead by now.” Pointed out Hermione.

“Nonetheless, bring something to cover your eyes and something reflective, just in case it’s a gorgon or a basilisk. The runespoor would have been the least trouble.” Lily told them worriedly.

“Also, keep your helmets on at all times if you  _ do _ have to fight something. The magical channeling of the armour should help redirect some of the magic. Or even better, leave the Chamber for next week, we should be able to come up with something to add an update to your armours and helmets and have it ready by then.” Added Torbjörn.

The whole team nodded at that, it made sense after all, and no one wanted to go against anything like that unprepared.

“So, I guess we should suit up and start exploring, shouldn’t we?”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Their first night of checking had been unfruitful. They had decided to start their search from the first floor and make their way up, but  _ nothing _ had come up. They hadn’t even crossed paths with Filch!

“They really need to up their security,” said a disgruntled Hermione the next morning, “the Main Doors are down there and there’s no one guarding the area,  _ anyone _ could enter and if aunt Minnie is not awake, no one would know!”

“I guess we have a good cover story in that though,” said a thoughtful Susan, “if someone asks, we can simply say we were invited to check the security measures in the castle.”

“And, as we don’t know how long that would take, there’s no fixed date for us to leave.” Harry chimed in, coming out of his room drying his wet hair with a towel, his t-shirt hugging his torso from the leftover water from his shower.

Hermione just stared at the boy with a blush, until Susan’s elbow on her ribs brought her back to the present.

“R-right,” the bushy haired girl stammered, glaring at her snickering, redheaded friend, “where are the others though? We should be getting ready for our run.”

“Lykos was showering when I left, no idea about the girls though, I’ll leave checking on them to you.” Harry told them with a shrug.

“I’ll go check on Pharah.” Susan said, standing up.

“I’ll go look for Bri, then.” Added Hermione, shrugging.

Soon, the whole group was ready to leave for their morning run, their armour around their necks in their necklace forms, ready to expand around their bodies at a moments notice.

“Should we use the dogs today?” Asked Harry during their warm up outside the main doors.

Seeing his friends’ nods, he just smirked, broke out in a run, leapt off the ground with a spin and turned into his wolf mid-air, stopping once touching ground to wait for the rest.

“And he thought  _ I _ was a show off?” Asked an amused Lykos, before starting a slow morph into his own, black wolf form.

One by one, the girls joined them, shifting into their own canines. Soon, Dora’s wolf, Pharah’s fennec fox, Brigitte’s recently re-added Arctic fox, Hermione’s gray wolf, Susan’s red fox, and Rose’s white wolf were running alongside the other two.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Hagrid was having breakfast in his hut when there was a knock at the door.

Curious, he rose up from the table and went to open door.

“Back Fang, get back!” He told the barking dog before opening the door, coming face to face with a grinning group.

“Wotcher Hagrid!” said Dora, “Want to have breakfast out with us? Lykos called home to ask where he could find some food for a picnic and ran back to the castle.” She told the half-giant.

Just as she said this, they heard heavy steps running towards them. Turning, they saw the big, black form of Lykos’ wolf with a basket between his fangs.

Once he reached them, he left the basket on the ground, receiving a pat on his head from a snickering Dora before turning back into his human form.

“Ha-ha,” He deadpanned before kissing the young woman’s forehead, making even her hair blush. “So, what do you say Hagrid? Will you join us?” He asked after pulling back, looking at the man.

“Oh, why not? Fang! Come ‘ere boy!” He said, the last part aimed at his Boarhound, who quickly came running out of the hut, jumped at Harry and proceeded to slobber all over the boy.

“Fang! Get off, you smell!” Said the laughing boy, trying to get the dog off his chest.

Soon, they were all sitting around, a blanket stretched under them and food laid out, chatting and just relaxing.

“By the way Hagrid,” said Lykos during a lull in the conversation, “have you gotten any new pets recently?”

“Aye, Ah a-got one from a Greek chappie the other day, a three-headed dog, no idea why the guy wanted to do away with ‘im though, ‘e’s jus’ a big softy!” He answered the long-haired young man.

“You got yourself a  _ cerberus?! _ Now  _ that _ I’ve got to see!” Came the excited answer from the grinning 19-year-old.

Hagrid laughed at his eagerness. “‘E’s hiddin’ in the forest righ’ now, I’ll brin’ ‘im later if ye want!”

“Talking about magical dogs,” started Dora, “we never saw the twins interact with the Stone, did we?”

“No you didn’t,” answered a smirking Rose, “what do you say brother? Do we show them our forms and auras?” She asked, looking at her twin.

“I don’t see why not.” Shrugged Lykos, before standing up and letting go of his control on his aura.

He was suddenly enveloped in deep black magic, little red streaks making themselves visible from time to time before his form started to shift.

At first they thought he was simply on his normal wolf form, but then he started growing, and growing, and growing until he doubled in size. His normally green eyes turned a bright red while his fangs sharpened. Where once Lykos Ignis was standing, now stood a Fenrisúlfr, the same species of magical wolf that inspired the old Norse tales about Fenrir. They were known for their ability to grow or shrink at will, their pups normally being the size of a juvenile wolf.

Then it was Rose’s turn. Her aura was identical to her brother’s, a deep black with some red streaks appearing from time to time. It was in their magical forms where they differed.

Just like with her brother, everyone else first thought she was simply in her eagle form. Then the growing started, and only ended when she was about as tall as Harry. She was a Hræsvelgr, another creature that inspired Norse tales. This kind of eagle was known for their massive size, and were said to sit at the end of the world and cause the winds when they beat their wings.

The twins turned back into their human forms, and after everyone got over their surprise at their transformations, they continued with their breakfast, Hagrid now asking them a thousand questions about their new magical forms.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

That night, while the group started checking the second floor of the castle, something else was going on in Devon, at the other end of the Isles.

A blonde witch, who was one of the many Overwatch agents who owed their lives to Dr. Angela Ziegler, was standing alongside her husband and daughter in front of their home, a tall structure in the shape of a chess set rook piece.

When she heard from one of her oldest friends, one Lily Potter, about the research they had going on at Watchpoint, she had convinced her husband to move to the base and help their friends in their objectives. Both he and their daughter had been completely in favor of the idea, just for the change in scenery and climate.

So here they were, waiting for the airship to come pick them up. The house had been placed on lockdown and all of their possessions shrunken and stored across many trunks, which they had also shrunken for easier transport.

It was then that they saw the bright lights of the airship’s engines before it landed and the backdoor opened, revealing Lena Oxton.

“Hi Lena!” Said the woman, going to hug her friend, “thank you for coming to pick us up.”

“Aw, don’t worry, Pan, I was in the area anyway,” the young pilot answered, “now, why don’t you introduce me to your family and we can get on our way?”

“Right. Lena, this is Xenophilius, my husband,” she said, pausing for a bit so Xenophilius could walk forward and shake the pilot’s hand, “and this little one here,” she added, kneeling beside her daughter, “is our daughter, Luna.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet ya!” Said the always-cheery woman, “I’m Lena, or Tracer, whichever you prefer!” She told them, before focusing on the little girl, “Normally, there would be other children around your age at Watchpoint, but they are on their first mission right now, so you will be pretty alone at base for a while, sorry Luna!” 

“Don’t worry, I can wait!” Cheerily said the little blonde, a megawatt smile on her face.

Lena smiled at the girl, she was so cute! “Let’s get on the ship and be on our way, then!” She said, flashing to her seat on the cockpit.

And with that, the small family got on the ship, ready to begin a new chapter of their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you spot any mistakes we overlooked don't hesitate to let me know! It's the only was I'll get better after all.
> 
> So...I know, this chapter was calm and a bit fluffy, but don't worry! There will be an action one coming soon, no idea how soon that is though.
> 
> Also, I realized while writing this that I forgot to put the twins' reaction to the Stone back in "Awakenings" (sorry), so I added their forms and auras here.
> 
> I've got nothing more to add, so I'll see you in my next chapter or story! Or the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	14. Upgrades anda a Mirror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis here with another chapter! As always, thanks to Tyrannic_Puppy for betaing this.
> 
> Also a big thank you to everyone that has been bookmarking, subscribing, leaving kudos and commenting. It means a lot guys!
> 
> Today there won't be notes at the end since I have nothing much to say, so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

“So the second floor was a bust, too?” Asked Lily through the video-feed the next morning.

“We couldn’t find anything at least,” shrugged Harry, “Lykos and Rose split from the group while we were coming back though, said they wanted to check the dungeons, but couldn’t find anything either.” He told the agents back home.

“I guess you will have to keep looking then.” James sighed.

“Anything new back home? How are the updates for our armours coming?” Lykos asked.

“Oh! Right!” Lily perked up, “last night an old friend of ours arrived with her family. She’s a researcher and suggested we cover the visors in your helmets with a reflective rune cluster, so you would be able to look out, but nothing could look _ in. _ Lena will take them to you once they are ready”

“Really? There’s a new researcher?” Asked an eager Hermione, “who are they? Do we know them?”

Angela chuckled at the the girls excitement, “I think the twins may remember her, Pandora Lovegood?” She asked.

“Auntie Pan? Yeah, we remember her,” said a thoughtful Lykos, “didn’t she have a daughter around Harry’s age?”

“Yes, little Luna! She’s with Genji right now, actually. She wants to start catching up to you as fast as possible.” She told them with a smile.

Lykos looked around at the rest of the team, “seems like we may have a new member waiting for us once we are done here, don’t you think?” He asked them with a smirk.

“We need to start getting more guys, Lobo. We are severely outnumbered!” Joked Harry, getting a playful slap to the back of his head from a giggling Hermione.

“Any luck with cleansing the other Horcrui?” Asked Rose.

“Not yet,” Tenebrae sighed, “both the locket and the cup are covered in ancient spells, and those two are the ones we don’t want to damage. The diary seems to have a consciousness thanks to the Soul Shard, so I’m simply containing it in case we ever need to get something out of him.” She told them.

“Like the location of this Horcrux?” Asked Pharah.

“I tried already, seems like he stopped writing on the diary before he hid whatever it is in Hogwarts. Sorry guys, you’ll have to search for it the hard way.” She said with a sympathetic face.

“We should be getting ready for our run anyway,” sighed Lykos, “then I think it would be a good idea to start asking the ghosts a couple of questions. We will talk with you later.” He told the group back home.

“Say hi to auntie Pan from us!” Chimed in Rose.

They said their goodbyes and left to get ready for their morning run.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

“Well, that was a waste of time.” Said Susan when they were back in their quarters.

Their questioning of the ghosts hadn’t brought any results. The Fat Friar and Sir Nicholas didn’t know anything, the Gray Lady had started to silently cry before floating away and the Bloody Baron didn’t even give them the time of day.

“I think the Gray Lady would be our best bet, the problem will be getting her help without making her cry again.” Said Rose.

“Why though? What makes her different?” Asked a confused Harry.

“Because the Gray Lady is Lady Helena Ravenclaw, Rowena Ravenclaw’s daughter,” Clarified Lykos, a thick book open before him, “so, if someone would know about a possible founder’s artifact, or secrets about the castle, it would more than probably be her.”

“We won’t get anything from her today though,” came Pharah’s muffled voice while she rubbed her face with her hands, “let’s just rest for the afternoon and then get ready for our night exploration.”

“Agreed,” said Hermione, unconsciously snuggling against Harry’s side, “I don’t want to be as tired as today in the morning.”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

That night, while the younger team was searching the castle’s third floor, the adults back at Watchpoint were hard at work.

In Torbjörn’s workshop, Lily, Pandora and the Flamels were inscribing, testing, scrapping and starting the cycle again with many different rune clusters for the visors. Angela was standing close by, just in case something backfired on them.

“Maybe if we simply bind an Eihwaz, a Thurisaz and an Anzus together?” Suggested Perenelle after the tenth failed test.

“Hmm,” hummed Pandora thoughtfully, “stability and prosperity around danger? Wouldn’t that still let the magic through?”

“What if we added an Algiz to that for the shield?” Asked Lily, “it would be a ‘shield of stability and prosperity against dangers’ if my Elder Futhark is not wrong.”

“That should work.” Nodded Nicholas before lowering his head and started to etch the rune into the crystal they were working with.

Once it was ready, they tested it against different, lethal spells, slowly increasing the power behind each. They were all deflected.

“Well, that’s that. Now how do we test it against a basilisk or a gorgon?” Asked Pandora, curiously looking at the other three.

Nicholas went to answer, before noticing that he, indeed, didn’t _ have _ an answer to give. “I’ll go check my books,” he sighed, “there’s bound to be some spell or alchemical creation that can replicate their abilities.” He said, before jogging towards his home.

Half an hour later, he was back, a thick tome under his arm.

“Lily, could you ask James to join us, please? There are spells for each of the creatures’ abilities, but they have to be cast in parseltongue.”

“Of course, give me a second.” The redhead answered, sending a messenger patronus to her husband.

Soon, they saw Prongs approach them at a run, turning back into James Potter about two meters from them.

“Ah, James, just the man we needed! Do you think you could cast these spells at that crystal over there?” Nicholas told him, showing him the to spells, one for the gorgon’s gaze, one for the basilisk’s.

James gave a quick read over them and seemed to hiss something under his breath before pulling out his wand.

“I would suggest everyone gets behind cover just in case this ends up deflected,” he told them, “if I understood it right, these spells perfectly replicate their gazes.”

They quickly got behind one of the thick walls of the workshop, peeking from behind to see the results.

“_ §Basiliscum ambulabis oculum§, _” he hissed in the snake tongue, and they all saw a bright yellow light leave his wand and bounce off the crystal, disintegrating when it hit the ceiling.

“Ok, it deflects the basilisk’s gaze!” He called to them, “now for the gorgon.”

“_ §Oculi Gorgone Maura§, _” he hissed once again, and this time they saw a green beam, a lighter shade than the killing curse, leave James’ wand and, once again, bounce off the crystal and disintegrate against the ceiling.

“That was the gorgon one, you can come out now!” He told the inventors.

“Well, I guess we have our visors’ inscription ready. I would really have liked to have the Killing Curse resistant metal done too, though.” Said a worried Lily.

“We already have it settling down, Lily, don’t worry. It should be ready by tomorrow morning!” She was told by a smiling Perenelle, “that should give Torbjörn enough time to have their armours ready for next week.”

“What did you use for it?” Asked a curious Pandora.

“Oh, some phoenix tears for The Life, dragon blood for its magical resistance and some thestral hairs for The Death.” Nicholas said, as if talking about the weather.

“Then we let that settle for a week in a pool of the same liquid the Philosopher’s Stone is made of and _ voíla _, you have a Killing Curse resistant metal!” Added Perenelle.

“It can’t be that easy, can it?” Asked an impressed Lily.

“Well, the settling pool is covered in different runes for protection and blessings, and its placed over a ritual circle we designed _ specifically _ for this purpose, but apart from that, no, it really is that simple.” Nicholas shrugged.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

“Nothing yet?” Asked Lily the next morning, seeing their children’s faces through the video-feed.

“Nothing,” confirmed her son, “neither the dungeons, the first floor, the second or the third have had anything! It feels like we’re wasting our time!” He bemoaned.

“The crystal hasn’t glowed?” Asked Tenebrae from beside her.

“Not more intensely than anywhere else in the castle, Mum,” Lykos sighed, “I just hope we find something soon. Harry is right, it really feels like a waste of time.” 

“Remember, if you do find something…” Noctus started.

“We only pick it up with either our armours on or a pair of dragonhide gloves, then put it inside the magic-dampening container. We know Dad.” Rose finished for him, “what do you suspect it is, anyway?” She asked.

“If he followed the same trend as with the locket and the cup, it could either be the Sorting Hat, which I doubt he would be able to get close enough to defile, the Sword of Gryffindor or Ravenclaw’s Diadem, but both have been lost for ages.” James told them.

“Ravenclaw’s Diadem, you say?” Asked Hermione, exchanging a look with the rest.

“Yes, why? Did you find out something?” Asked Amelia.

“Not precisely,” started Dora, “but when we asked the ghosts for information, the Gray Lady started crying before leaving, and since she’s Helena Ravenclaw, well…” She trailed off.

“Didn’t the legend say that she stole the diadem?” Sirius asked, looking at Remus.

“Yes. Supposedly, Helena stole her mother’s diadem to try and be like her, and fled Britain. No one knows where to, though.”

“Something tells me the Gray Lady knows, and regrets, something,” said Pharah thoughtfully, “could he have tricked her into revealing the location of the diadem?” She wondered.

“More than possibly,” said Narcissa, “if he could fool all the British magicals into thinking he was so powerful, I don’t see how he couldn’t have gotten some information from one ghost.”

“Let’s check the fourth floor tonight,” proposed Bri, “and if we don’t find anything again, we try and ask the Gray Lady again, what do you say?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Susan, “we should also try and get uncle Fi’s help to talk to her.”

“Any news on our armours?” Asked Harry suddenly, “or on my baby sibling? Do you know the sex yet?” He said eagerly.

Lily chuckled a bit before answering, “not yet about the baby, Harry, it’s still too early on, we will tell you when we find out though,” she told him with a smile, “and about the armours, last night we made the protective rune cluster for the visors, and Torbjörn will start working with the new metal today, so your armours should be ready by Friday.”

“New metal?” Lykos asked, “you mean the Flamels finished it?!”

“Yes. Turns out they’ve had it settling for about a week, so it would be ready by now,” said a smirking James, “so your new armours will be Killing Curse resistant.”

“That’s some great news!” Said a smiling Brigitte, “but shouldn’t we be getting ready for our run?”

“In that you’re right,” Rose said with a nod, “we will call you tomorrow with what we find tonight, bye!” She said, the rest saying their goodbyes too before closing the connection.

“Well, should we go see how Trobjörn is doing?”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

_ Clang. Clang. Clang. _ That was the only sound that could be heard inside the engineer’s workshop.

The engineer himself was bent over a piece of metal, shaping up a few kinks before passing it over to Nicholas so he could blend it with the rest of the armour.

Some of the taller armors were already standing on their mannequins, ready to be put into their cases and sent to their users. They all had seemingly empty areas that no one there, except for the engineer, knew what they were for.

“Hey Torbjörn, Nicholas!” Called Sirius once the pair had finished with the current piece.

“Hello!” Called the short engineer, walking towards them alongside the alchemist.

“How are the armours coming along?” Asked Genji, studying one of the standing pieces.

“Pretty well, actually,” came the answer, “the helmets are already made and attached, plus the shrinking system so they can always carry them on themselves. Just like their current ones, these will react to their intent and the situation.” They were told by the engineer.

“What about the visors’ crystals?” Asked Lily, looking at another of the completed armours.

“The helmets were the first thing we did, the visors were attached about two hours ago for every armour,” Torbjörn told her, “and this metal is _ incredible _, I’ll tell you, extremely light and flexible, but almost as strong as diamond!” He said excitedly.

“Let’s hope is enough to stop a basilisk’s bite.” Said James worriedly.

“It should be,” said Nicholas, “Perenelle and I calculated it would be able to resist the bite of an adult Fenrisúflr without problem, so I doubt a basilisk will be able to do much.”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

That night, the group at the castle was exploring the fourth floor when they came across an empty classroom.

Well, empty, except for the tall mirror standing in the middle of it.

“What is this thing?” Asked Harry, slowly making his way into the room.

“It looks familiar,” said Hermione, “I think I saw it once in a book?” She wondered, walking to stand alongside her friend.

The other six members of the team looked at each other before following their friends, coming to stand behind them.

Harry and Hermione were staring transfixed at the mirror, bright blushes on their faces, not that anyone could see them under their helmets.

Harry was seeing an older version of himself, hugging a _ very _ familiar looking brunette woman by the waist, a child in each of their free arms, a little boy and a slightly older looking girl.

Hermione was seeing an older version of herself, standing on her tiptoes and kissing a certain messy haired, green eyed man, his hands on the small of her back while hers were clasped around his neck.

Lykos looked down at the two kids, and then up at the top of the mirror’s frame.

_ ‘Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi?’ _ He wondered to himself, _ ‘maybe it would be a good idea to call home.’ _

“Sombra? You there?” He asked through the intercom.

_ “Aquí estoy Lobo! Something wrong?” _ Came the hacker’s voice.

“Are the others around? I think we found something. Not a Horcrux though.” He told their main contact.

_ “They are all here and listening!” _She told him.

“Copy that, I’m sending video-feed through,” he informed them before starting the transmission, “does any of you recognize that?”

“That’s the Mirror of Erised!” Came Nicholas surprised voice, “what is it doing at Hogwarts? The last time I saw that thing was when I lent it to Dumbledore!”

“Well, it seems he left it here. Is it dangerous? Cobra and Crane have been staring at it for quite a bit of time now.” Lykos asked.

“Not per se, it shows your heart’s deepest desire.”

“That explains it,” said Dora, joining the conversation, “they can’t get enough of seeing themselves as a couple!” She joked, not knowing how right she was.

“Should we get them away from it?” Asked Rose.

“It would be a good idea, Aguila. Their desire is easily reachable, so it isn’t dangerous to them, but better safe than sorry,” they were told by Nicholas, “also, if you could get it back home with you, I would be more than thankful. It’s one of my finest creations!”

“Copy that Philosopher! We will take it back with us. We should also ask headmistress McGonagall how is it that they hadn’t found it yet, I mean, it’s been ten years since Dumbledore died!” Lykos said before cutting the connection.

Once they had managed to bring their friends back to the present, they lifted the mirror and started to make their way back to their quarters, and more importantly, their beds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you spot any mistakes we overlooked don't hesitate to let me know! It's the only was I'll get better after all. And I'll see you in my next chapter or story! Or the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	15. Crown Me!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis here again with yet another chapter! As always, thanks to Tyrannic_Puppy for betaing this!
> 
> Also a big thank you to everyone subcribing, bookmarking, leaving kudos and commenting. It means a lot!
> 
> Yesterday I didn't have much to say, because I had just woken up when I decided to post the chapter, but today I have, so I'll talk with at thending, but for now...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

“Nothing yet?” Asked Lily that Friday morning.

“Nothing!” Sighed Harry, “apart from the mirror, every floor, from the dungeons to the fifth, has been empty, and the Gray Lady still hasn’t told us anything yet!” He ranted.

“Did you find out why the mirror was there, by the way?” Asked Nicholas from the side.

“Yeah. Turns out they  _ did _ find it not long after Dumbledore’s death, but not knowing what it actually was, decided to just leave it there. The door was supposed to be heavily locked, but Peeves decided that it would be funny to open it!” Lykos told the alchemist, “any news on our armours?” He asked.

“They are being loaded into the ship as we speak, and Lena should be there around lunchtime!” Emily told them.

“Sweet!” Said an eager Brigitte, “I can’t wait to see them!”

“Do you think she could take the Mirror back with her? These two,” Rose pointed at Harry and Hermione, “have been staring into it quite a bit since we took it from the room.” She told the group back home, eliciting a blush from the two, and snickering from Susan.

“Don’t worry, luv, it’s no problem!” Chimed in the smiling pilot from Emily’s side.

“I meant to ask, how’s the new girl doing?” Asked Dora from her seat on Lykos’ lap.

“Genji’s been helping her with physical training, but he wants to leave the actual fighting training to you lot. He says that it may help with her fitting in process.” Shrugged Angela.

“We can take care of that once we are back,” Lykos sighed, rubbing his face with his hands, “I just want to find that thing and be done with this, to be honest.” He said, resting his head on Dora’s.

“Don’t worry, you only have two floors left, right? It should appear between tonight and tomorrow night, don’t worry.” Said James sympathetically.

“True, though I think we aren’t considering one thing.” Nodded Hermione.

“What’s that, Hermione?” Asked Rose

“What if the item is buried on the grounds?”

Rose’s left eyelid twitched a bit before she dropped her head on the table with a groan.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

That day, they decided to have lunch in the Great Hall. Their reasons were two-fold.

One, they would be able to catch up with Neville and ask uncle Fi for help on talking with the Gray Lady. And two, they would be close to the doors for when Lena arrived.

So there they were, talking with Neville and some of his friends, Lykos and Harry standing with their backs to them, glaring holes into Malfoy when the doors opened to admit their favorite pilot, Hagrid walking by her side and carrying eight cases.

“Cheers, luvs!” Lena called with a smile, “The cavalry’s here!”

“Hi Lena!” Brigitte said, turning from their conversation and standing up, the rest of the team right behind her.

Harry made an I’m-watching-you motion to Draco before joining the rest, making the blond gulp audibly.

Hagrid placed the cases on the ground before the team. They were stacked so the tallest, Lykos’, was at the bottom while the shortest, Susan’s, was at the top. Apart from size, the different cases were differentiated by the animal etched on the lid. A wolf, a red eagle, a blue eagle, a crane, a leopard, a panther, a monkey and a cobra.

“Thanks for the help, Hagrid!” Said the pilot.

“It was nothin’, really!” Answered the beaming half-giant before going to take a seat at the staff table.

“Ok, people,” said a smirking Lykos, “take your weapons off, put your armours in necklace form and let’s give these babies a look!”

Once they were standing on their normal clothes and placed the cases upright, they each placed their hand on the lid in front of them, revealing their new armours.

Lykos’ was a deep onyx, with red details in the torso and arms. His usual wolf helmet in place and with the same red details as the arms on the muzzle.

Rose’s was in the same color palette as her brother’s, the difference was in the details’ pattern and the helmet, hers being an eagle, the same red details running through it.

Susan’s was also a deep black, but hers had golden details running down her whole body, the ones on the arms circling the wrists, while the ones on the legs did the same on the ankles. Her panther helmet had the same golden lines around the eyes and marking the muzzle’s ‘mouth.’

Brigitte’s was a deep, ocean blue with soft red details along the edges, her leopard helmet having intricate details in the same red all over it. On hers they were able to notice for the first time some see-through areas on their armours, wondering what they were for.

Pharah’s armour was a deep silver with blue highlights around the shoulders, her eagle helmet having the same around the eyes.

Dora’s was the same black as the twins’ and Susan’s, with thin, pink lines littering her torso and criss-crossing down her arms, her monkey helmet having it inside the ears and around the eyes.

Hermione’s was a scarlet red with periwinkle blue details flowing through her torso, softly fading out towards her hips, her crane helmet had them flowing through the now much shorter beak, giving it a sleeker and softer style.

But Harry’s was definitely the one where Torbjörn spent the most time with the details.

His armor was a deep onyx, much like the twins’, Susan’s and Dora’s, with emerald green lines masking the few noticeable joints and flowing through his arms and legs, some converging on the back of his hands to form cobra heads with their mouths wide open. His cobra helmet had its crown flaring out, an ankh design drawn in gold on the back, with an eye of Horus drawn around each eye while in the snout it had fangs sculpted and painted on the same gold. All in all, it made for one scary visage.

They all had one thing in common apart from the see-through spaces. There was a slot for the Horcrux-locating crystal in the middle of their right forearms.

“Well,” asked Lykos with wide eyes, “who wants to try them on?”

He hadn’t even finished saying that when everyone around him had extended their hands towards the armours, so he just shrugged and followed along.

The moment their hands were about to touch them, the armours switched into their necklace mode and fell onto their hands.

They didn’t waste a second more and placed them around their necks before giving the mental command.

_ ‘Armour: Engage!’ _ They all thought at the same time, creating quite the cacophony on their mental link.

The necklaces became static and the animal pendants disappeared, giving place to a liquid extending down their bodies.

First came the arms. The liquid rapidly and evenly flowed down towards their hands, hardening as it went into the cold metal of their armours. The see-through sections there revealed their function as the magic channeling system, starting to glow on their respective aura’s color. Then came the torso and the legs, flowing much in the same manner.

The helmet was left for last and was the most mechanical part. It started climbing the back of their heads, giving shape to the main part of the helmet before the mask closed over their faces, the eyes shining with their aura color.

“Was it just me, or did that feel a lot like Power Rangers?” Asked Harry, looking himself over.

“No, I felt it too kid,” came Lykos’ answer, handing him his katana, gun and daggers while strapping his own, “they feel lighter though, don’t they?”

“Yes they do,” agreed his sister, “and seem more flexible, too.”

“You look great, luvs!” Lena said brightly, “now c’mon! Let’s get that Mirror covered and on the ship!”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

“This is  _ useless!” _ Harry sighed that night while scouring the sixth floor, “we have been here for days and haven’t found a thing!”

“Let’s just check the seventh floor tonight too,” suggested Hermione, resting her head on Harry’s shoulder while hugging him, “it’s still early and we are almost done here anyway.”

“I’m with her,” said Susan, “the faster we get this mission done, the faster we can be back home!”

No one had any issues with that, so they quickly finished with the sixth floor and moved up. They scoured the whole floor, and it wasn’t until they were almost done that they struck gold.

“Wait, I think I’ve got something!” Called Lykos, looking at the crystal on his arm. They were standing in front of a tapestry of an old wizard trying to teach trolls how to...ballet?

Lykos walked close to the wall in front of them, noticing how the crystal seemed to glow brighter the closer he got.

“I’m either missing something, or it’s behind this wall,” he said, giving a knock on the stone, “sounds like it’s hollow, but if it was a room, where’s the door?” He wondered.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

“Wait, you mean you found where it is, but not how to get to it?” Asked a confused Sirius during their morning report.

“Yeah, on the seventh floor, in front of that ugly tapestry of the crazy old coot trying to teach trolls ballet or something.” Answered a nodding Rose.

“Barnabas the Barmy? There’s never been a room there, as far as I know,” said a thoughtful Remus, “your best bet may still be to try and talk to the Gray Lady, unless Fawkes knows something about that floor?” He wondered.

“Worth a try, Fawkes!” Called Harry, standing up and shifting into the golden condor.

“Have you thought about what you’re doing about the Chamber?” Asked James while Harry ‘chatted’ with Fawkes.

“We were thinking of checking it out soon, but now that we know where the Horcrux is, that takes priority. We will deal with whatever is in it before leaving though, it could be a danger to the students.” Lykos said.

“I’ve got it!” Said Harry, turning back into his human form, “Fawkes knew what it was, c’mon!”

They all left their quarters at a run, their armour coming on in the process.

“Cobra, what is it?” Asked Rose, running alongside him.

“If Fawkes was telling the truth, and I’m pretty sure he was, Voldemort hid the Horcrux inside something called the  _ Room of Requirement, _ the founders made it so, if you walk in front of the wall three times while thinking about what you need, the door would appear.” He told her.

Soon, they were standing in front of the wall with Harry pacing back and forth, until they saw a door melt from the stone.

They quickly entered the room, and found themselves surrounded by tons and tons of items from different ages.

“Well,” said Lykos after a couple of minutes, “there’s no time to lose, I guess.”

And with that, they started walking, following the crystal as it glowed brighter and brighter.

It didn’t take them long to come across a bust with a silver diadem with an eagle design embracing a blue jewel resting on its head.

Rose didn’t waste time and reverently took the legendary artifact in her armour-clad hands, carefully placing it inside of the containment case.

“Well, I guess we finally found what we were looking for, don’t you think?” Said Lykos, stretching his arm towards his sister and seeing the crystal brighten.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

“We have it!” Excitedly said Harry through the video-feed, showing them the diadem.

“The bastard really went and defiled Ravenclaw’s diadem?!” Asked a flabbergasted Tenebrae, the rest being struck speechless at seeing the ancient artifact.

“Seems like it,” nodded Lykos, “so our plan now is to go the day after tomorrow to the Chamber and deal with whatever is lurking down there, and then we will be able to go back home.” He told them.

“Guys, your armour may be stronger now, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take this seriously. Harry, try and reason with whatever is down there if you can, but if it doesn’t work, you lot shouldn’t hesitate about using lethal force, ok?” Said a worried Lily.

“Don’t worry Mum, we won’t, I promise.” Said a serious Harry, taking Hermione’s hand under the table and giving it a squeeze. They would deal with whatever was down there, one way, or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know down in the comments! Also, if you notice any mistakes we overlooked, don't hesitate to let me know! It's the only way I'll get better after all.
> 
> Whooo! This little Hogwarts arc is coming to an end! They still have to deal with whatever is inside the Chamber, but when that's done, they will be free to go back home!
> 
> Why I didn't use the Gray Lady to tell them where the diadem was? Because here I made her a lot more regretful about it, not being able to even think about that without starting to cry. I will have them present the cleansed diadem once everything is said and done though, it would be too cruel to her not to.
> 
> Did you like the new armours designs? Let me know that too in the coments!
> 
> I've got nothing more to add, so I'll see you on my next chapter or story! Or the comments for other stories, who knows?!


	16. Monster Hunting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis here again with another chapter! As alaways, thanks to Tyrannic_Puppy for betaing this chapter.
> 
> Also a big thank you to everyone subscrubing, bookmarking, leaving kudos and commenting. It means a lot!
> 
> I'll talk with you at the end, so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

“Are we set, then?” Asked Lykos, looking around at the rest of the team.

They were standing in the girls’ bathroom on the second floor, better known as Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, fully equipped and ready for their upcoming fight.

At seeing their nods, the wolf helmeted young man signaled for Harry to open the access.

§Open.§ Hissed the boy at the snake-shaped tap.

They all watched enraptured as the column of sinks slid open, revealing a wide tunnel down.

“Umm, do we have to jump down?” Hermione asked, voice filled with doubt, looking worriedly into the darkness below them.

“I doubt Salazar Slytherin simply jumped down,” said Harry, “let’s try this,” §stairs.§ He hissed this time.

Stone steps formed in a spiral down the tunnel. They exchanged glances before, one after the other, they started their descent into the abyss.

Reaching the bottom, they heard a  _ crunch _ when their feet touched the ground. Looking down, they saw the floor was littered with animal bones, at least they hoped they were animal.

The team shook those thoughts off and walked down the tunnel in a circle formation, watching every angle in case something decided it was a good idea to try and attack them. After several minutes of walking, they came across something  _ big. _

“Sombra, do you copy?” Asked Lykos through the intercom, looking wide eyed under his helmet at the thing.

_ “Te escucho, Lobo! What’s wrong?” _ Came their favorite hacker’s answer.

“Is everyone with you? We are walking towards the main chamber, and I think you have to see this.” He told her.

_ “We’re all here, Lobo, what happened?” _ Came Noctus’ voice.

“We have confirmation of  _ what _ it is that Salazar left down here, I’m starting video-feed.” The young hunter told them, engaging the cameras on his helmet.

_ “Oh, fuck, is that…?”  _ Said a shocked Sirius.

Before them was a snake skin shed. It was at least 20 feet long, and looked quite old.

_ “Of all the snake-like creatures he could have left down there, it had to be the basilisk!”  _ Sighed James, _ “guys, be careful, that skin is quite old, so the basilisk must be quite a bit bigger by now.”  _ He told them worriedly.

“We will be, Stag, don’t worry. I’ll cut feed until we’re inside the Chamber itself, Lobo out.” He said, turning the signal off. “Let’s keep going,” he told the rest of the team, “and watch every side, now we have confirmation it’s the most dangerous of the bunch.”

They kept on walking, turning their attention at every sound, until they came across a closed door. It had snake sculpted on it, but they couldn’t find any kind of lock.

“Cobra, try and open this thing.” Said Lykos, signaling Harry to hiss once again.

The boy walked forward, and looked intently at the door. §Open.§ He hissed, and they all watched as the snakes came to life and started to move one by one, unlocking the door.

They slowly entered the Chamber, torches coming to life in the mouths of snake statues. 

The Chamber itself was pretty bare. Apart from the snake-torches, there was a statue of who they assumed was Salazar Slytherin standing in front of them, but no signs of their monster.

“Umm, base?” Lykos said through the intercom, “we have good news and bad news.”

_ “Something wrong, Lobo?” _ Came his Mother’s voice.

“Well, the good news is, we are fine,” he said, calming her nerves, “the bad news is, the Chamber is empty.”

_ “Come again?” _ Deadpanned Sirius.

“You heard me, there’s nothing,” he said, “Cobra is hissing around and trying to find some secret doors, but there doesn’t seem to be anything yet. Wait, I’m sending feed.” He told them, engaging his helmet cameras.

“Hræsvelgr, could you take the diary and see if you can extract some answers from it? He should know if there’s some kind of password or something.” Rose joined the conversation.

_ “Good idea, Águila, I’ll see what I can do! Give me a bit to go fetch it.” _ Tenebra said before they heard her step away.

“Cobra! Wait for a bit! Hræsvelgr went to get some help!” Lykos called towards their parselmouth.

_ “Okay, I’m back!” _ They heard Tenebrae’s voice through the intercom,  _ “Now, let’s see what you know, Riddle,  _ Revelare Vestra Veritas! _ ”  _ They heard her say, before the scratching of a quill against parchment, _ “okay, he resisted for a bit, but he says that the password is ‘Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four.’” _ She told them.

“You heard her, Cobra! Start hissing again!” Chuckled Lykos, placing a hand on one of his katanas.

§Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four.§ Hissed the cobra helmeted boy, looking directly at the statue.

They watched as the statue’s mouth opened, and heard something heavy slithering its way towards them.

Everyone with a ranged weapon aimed it towards the statue, until Lykos’ voice stopped them.

“Everyone hold your fire and aim your weapons low!” He told them, “let’s see if Cobra can reason with it first!”

§Who enters my lair and calls for me?§ Heard Harry where the others heard a low, soft hiss.

It was then it finally emerged from the statue. The snake was, in one word,  _ massive _ . It was about 36 inches around, and at least 60 feet in length.

§We are young guardians, seeking to request a favor from you, Great One.§ Said Harry, kneeling before the basilisk.

§And what is it you may need from me, young one?§ She asked, her voice was warm on Harry’s ears, not unlike a mother’s.

§Great One, your presence could become a hazard for the young students walking the halls over our heads, so we ask of you, with no insult intended, to leave the castle’s vicinity, so no one has to suffer the curse of your gaze upon them.§ The boy hissed, looking at the ground.

Where the rest heard a weird, breathy hiss, Harry heard a soft chuckle, “I’m too big to leave this place now, little one, but even if I could, I wouldn’t, my master asked of me to protect this place for my whole existence. But, could I ask a favor of you eight, little one?§ She asked him.

Harry exchanged a look with the rest of the group before answering, §what is it you ask for, Great One?§

§Little one, I’m so old now, that I only want to join my master in warm oblivion, but what kind of Queen would I be if I didn’t go fighting? I ask of you eight, please end my years of solitude with honor, and fight me.§ She told Harry.

“Cobra, what is she saying? What’s wrong?” Asked Lykos, seeing how his honorary little brother had grown tense.

§I will ask my friends, Great One,§ he told the basilisk, before turning towards the rest, “guys, she’s alone, and only wants to leave this plane of existence, but asks us to end her life with honor in battle, do you think it would be possible?” He asked the group.

The rest of the group exchanged glances and nods under their helmets before Lykos turned back towards Harry and the Great Snake. “Ask her how she wants to do this. Wanting to leave with honor is something that we understand.” He told the young parselmouth.

§My companions ask how would you like to do this, Great One, we will make sure your death is filled with glory.§ He told the old snake.

§Thank you, little one, you don’t know how much this means to this old snake. You’re all so well armed, but still so small when compared to me, that it wouldn’t be fair if I asked of you to come one at a time, so please, charge with all you’ve got.§ She told him with a voice filled with gratitude.

“She says we go at her all at the same time, she wants to make this fair.” Harry told the rest of the group, walking towards them.

Lykos only nodded and raised an extended hand in the air, prompting everyone to prepare for the fight.

_ Five. _

Susan loaded an arrow on her bow while Pharah raised her grenade launcher and Brigitte hefted her whip-hammer.

_ Four. _

Hermione unlocked the safety of her rifle and took aim. At the same time, Harry unsheathed his sword and started to let go of his control on his aura.

_ Three. _

Rose released her left rope-dart and took one of her daggers on her main hand.

_ Two. _

The basilisk tensed and got ready to launch herself at the group.

_ One. _

Lykos unsheated one of his katanas with his main hand, leaving his off hand raised.

“Now!” He called, jumping to the side when the basilisk launched herself and unsheathed his second katana mid-air, dashing towards the basilisk’s side the moment he hit the ground.

The whole team dodged the massive snake’s attack, starting to respond immediately.

Soon, the Chamber was filled with a cacophony of  _ bangs _ and bullet caskets hitting the ground. The basilisk was taking a lot of damage while the team barely exerted themselves. This didn’t mean they didn’t have some complications. Lykos had been hit by her tail and sent flying, slamming against one of the snake statues while most of Susan’s arrows weren’t able to penetrate the snake’s thick skin.

“JUSTICE RAINS FROM ABOVE!” Pharah cried from, well,  _ above _ them thanks to the thrusters on her armour, unleashing a great load of grenades and other explosives on the basilisk, causing the snake quite a bit of damage.

Once the explosions had stopped, Rose dashed towards the basilisk and slashed with her rope-dart and her dagger, causing long but shallow cuts on the snake’s skin before retreating to a safer distance again.

“Please let this work,” whispered Susan, loading a  _ special _ arrow on her bow, “ _ PANSĀ GA WAGA TEKI WO KURAU! _ ” She cried, releasing the arrow. Her aura answered her call, and a yellow energy enveloped the projectile, quickly taking the shape of a running panther, who started to tear at the basilisk the moment it reached her. It lasted for about a minute until the energy faded away, having done its purpose. The massive snake had some deep slashes from the panther’s claws and fangs.

Dora was firing everything she had, and even though her bullets didn’t penetrate deeply, the sheer amount of ammo was enough to at least slow the snake down.

Brigitte took a running leap at the basilisk’s head, landing on it with a hammer slam, the indenting attaching it to the skin. She jumped off to a safe distance, the chain of the whip extending before she recalled it. leaving some long slashes on the snake’s head.

Hermione saw her opening when the basilisk started to thrash about from Brigitte’s attack. When the hammer wounds were in clear view, she took quick aim and pulled the trigger, her high caliber bullet making good way to deepen one of those slashes. It wasn’t enough to completely kill the snake, but it sure hurt like hell.

Lykos stood up from the ground and shook the dizziness from the hit off before grabbing his swords again and charging at the basilisk, leaping to land on her body and stab his blades down to try and immobilize her for a bit. He found purchase right behind the head and grabbed a good hold of the tsukas, the handles of the katanas. “Cobra!” He called, “if you’re gonna do something, do it now!”

Harry heard his friend’s call, positioned himself in front of the thrashing snake and completely let go of his control on his aura.

“ _ KOBURAJIN NO KEN WO KURAE! _ ” He screamed, his aura taking the shape of a cobra around both him and his sword, before charging at the snake and deeply cutting all along her side.

That did the trick. Lykos jumped off of the basilisk, dislodging his swords in the process, when she started to truly thrash about, rising and  _ roaring _ in pain before falling to the ground, breathing shallowly.

Harry swiftly walked towards the dying snake’s head, kneeling by her side.

§Thank you so much little one,§ she told him in a soft whisper, §for this, I will give you a gift.§ At this, she glowed the same color as Harry’s aura for a second before it faded. §Now, you should be able to call upon me like you did upon that cobra,§ she told him almost breathlessly, §but could this old snake ask of you one last thing?§ She asked.

§Anything, Great One.§ Harry answered.

§Firstly, use my body well, Salazar always told me how useful it could be for potions,” she chuckled breathlessly, “and second, go into the place from where I came, inside that statue, take with you what you find there, and protect it, will you?§ She asked.

§Of course, Great One, now rest, you have earned it.§ The boy answered, placing his hand and forehead against the massive snake’s head.

§Goodbye little one, and thank you for your help.§ She told him with her dying breath, and the Queen of the Snakes, the Serpent of Slytherin was no more.

“Lobo, help me close her lids before I fulfill her request, brother.” Harry asked of the wolf helmeted teen, who nodded and went to the other side of the head and closed the eyelid.

“What did she ask of you at the end?” Lykos asked the younger boy.

“That we use her body well, and that I go into the statue, take whatever I find there with us and protect it.” He answered seriously before going to fulfill the basilisks request.

Lykos saw his ‘little brother’ walk towards the basilisk’s sleeping chamber before he himself approached one of the snake statues and sat on the floor, recalling his helmet into the armour itself.

“It’s done,” he sighed through the intercom, “the basilisk is dead.”

_ “We know,” _ came Lily’s voice, it sounded thick, like she had been crying,  _ “we saw and heard everything through the video-feed, and James translated what she said for us.” _ She told him.

“Then you heard what she asked be done with her body.”

_ “Yes,”  _ he heard Nicholas sigh,  _ “you know how to make a portkey, right?” _ He asked.

“Yeah, I will wait until Harry is back before making it and sending her to you, he has to be present. Her eyelids were closed, but I would suggest you all wear visors just in case.”

_ “We will Lobo, don’t worry.”  _ Assured him his mother.

“Understood. Lobo, out.” He said, cutting the communication and resting his head against the statue with a sigh.

Dora soon joined him and sat on his lap, hiding her face on his chest after shrinking her helmet too. He just stroked her back while they sat there in silence.

“I thought it would feel better,” said Dora after a while, “we were supposed to come down here and fight a crazed monster, but instead we find a tired and lonely snake that just wanted to be sent off in a blaze of glory.” She told him, nuzzling his chest.

“I know, Nym,” Lykos answered, still stroking her back and hearing her start to sob, “I’m not surprised we feel like this, we just ended a noble creature’s life, no matter that it was her wish.” He said, resting his head on hers and shedding some tears of his own.

_ “Oh, I feel like a piece of crap now!” _ They heard Harry’s voice through the intercom, breaking their moment.

“What’s wrong, Cobra? What did you find?” Lykos asked.

_ ”You wouldn’t believe me if I just told you, Lobo,” _ he told the teen,  _ “you have to see it to believe me, I guess.” _

Hearing that, they all turned into one of their avian forms and flew through the statue’s mouth.

When they saw what the boy had found, they agreed with his sentiment, they felt like shit.

Resting in Harry’s hands was a big, pearly white egg.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

“I thought basilisks could only be created artificially?” Asked Hermione through the video-feed once they were back on their quarters.

They had sent the basilisk’s carcass to the base before leaving the Chamber, and decided to call the agents back home and ask Nicholas and Perenelle about the egg the same day instead of waiting until they were back in front of them.

“That’s the general consensus, yes,” sighed Nicholas, “but you have to remember that there are a lot of variables when it comes to alchemy, and sometimes the magic just outright ignores them. So, if the basilisk was born at the right time, it is possible that she was able to lay a biological basilisk egg instead of one having to get a chicken egg and hatch it under a toad.” He told them.

“Do you think we will be able to hatch it under a UV light bulb? You know, like they do normal snakes?” Dora asked.

“There shouldn’t be a problem,” Perenelle told them, “basilisks may be enormous, but at their core they are just that, snakes.”

“You know I’m keeping it, right?” Said a serious Harry, “it was her last request, and I won’t leave it unfulfilled.”

“We know Harry,” said Lily with an understanding smile, “and we’re very proud of you for keeping your promise to her.”

“I’ll go pick you up tomorrow morning,” said a smiling Lena, “you should take a shower and rest for now though, you must be really tired.”

“That we are,” nodded Rose, “we will see you tomorrow then.” She said.

They all said their goodbyes and closed the feed, rising up and going towards their rooms to take a shower and then crash on their beds until the next morning.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

Harry rose from his bed in the middle of the night. Even though he was tired, his mind just didn’t want to rest after what they had done today, so he left the room and went to sit for a while in the quarters’ main room.

He found Hermione already sitting on one of the couches, so decided to take a seat beside her. She snuggled against his side while he hugged her around her shoulders.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Asked Harry, resting his head on hers.

She shook her head and snuggled closer to him. “No,” she said softly, “I’m still thinking of her.” She told him.

“Me too,” he agreed, “want to talk about it?”

She shook her head again, “just hold me.”

He nodded, hugging her tighter to his body.

Lykos came out of the room after a while and saw the two kids sleeping on the couch and snuggling together. He just shook his head with a smile and went to get a blanket from Harry’s bed to cover them. Tomorrow they would leave for their home, and it would be better if they slept as soundly as possible now. Though after what they had experienced earlier, he doubted any of them would sleep too soundly tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you notice any mistakes that we overlooked, don't hesitate to let me know! It's the only way I'll get better after all.
> 
> And with this, we come to the end of this little Hogwarts arc. Action is not my forté, but I hope the battle scenes were still entertaining to read. 
> 
> Also, I'm sorry if you were rooting for the team during the fight and then felt like them when they found the egg, I just couldn't resist the opportunities having a little basilisk at Watchpoint would give me.
> 
> I've got nothing more to add, so I'll see you in my next chapter or story! Or the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	17. A New Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Ignis here with another chapter! As always, thanks to Tyrannic_Puppy for betaing this chapter.
> 
> Also, big thanks to everyone bookmarking, subscribing, leaving kudos and commenting. It means a lot!
> 
> I'll talk with you at the end so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

“Finally  _ home! _ ” Said Harry, stepping down the airship and into the warm climate of Watchpoint.

“Don’t exaggerate kid,” came Lykos’ amused retort from behind him, “we were gone barely a week and a half.” He said while the rest of the team got off before they made their way towards the lab.

“Felt like longer though,” said Hermione while they walked, “it was so dreary!” She moaned.

“I think it’s more that we’re too used to the sunny climate here,” started Rose, “but I have to agree with you on that, it was dreary.”

“Doesn’t surprise that auntie Minnie, Hagrid and the Longbottoms want to move here once everything’s done!” Said Brigitte.

“You have the egg?” Asked Dora, turning towards Harry.

The boy nodded and raised his left hand, showing her the pouch with the egg inside. Since they had found it, Harry had hardly let the egg out of his reach. His argument was that he had killed its mother, so the least he could do was grant the great snake’s last wish and take good care of her baby.

Soon, they found themselves inside the main room of the lab, and after exchanging hugs with their extended family, and once Harry had placed the egg on a table so Winston, Angela and the Flamels could scan to see how they would make the incubator, the team was introduced to the Lovegoods.

Xenophilius, or Xeno as he told them to call him, was a relatively tall wizard, with a slight cross-eye and shoulder-length hair. He had a slightly eccentric air about him, but was friendly and welcoming.

Pandora, or Pan as most knew her, was a short-ish woman, shorter than Lena at least, with pale silvery eyes and long, dirty blonde hair. She had a warm smile, and the first thing she did was mention how much Harry and the twins had grown since the last time she saw them, promoting chuckles from the older two, and a blush from the youngest.

And last but not least, was their daughter. She was quite a bit shorter than Hermione and Susan, barely reaching their chins, with wide, dreamy eyes the same color as her mother’s and her hair, which also matched with her mum, reaching her waist. She had a dreamy expression on her face, but her lips were stretched in a wide smile.

“Hi! I’m Luna!” She chirped.

The twins chuckled a bit before crouching to her height, with them being the tallest of their team, Lykos being around 6’7’’ and Rose at 6’2’’, there was quite the height difference between them and the girl.

“We remember you, little moon,” said Lykos with a small smile, “you used to fall asleep while we sang the few times mum babysat you.” He told her.

Luna’s lips formed a small ‘o’ shape before she launched herself at the young man, her arms latching around his neck.

Lykos just looked down at the small girl, shrugged, and stood up, Luna still firmly attached to his neck, her little feet dangling in the air.

Lykos just looked down at the small girl hanging around his neck again before turning towards his sister. “She has a good grip.” He told her with a nod and a small smirk, “umm, Luna, could you let go now?” He asked softly.

“Not yet,” she said stubbornly before, in a great show of agility, she swung around his neck and lodged herself on his back, “I’m staying here until we go training!” She said eagerly, a megawatt smile on her face.

Lykos looked surprised at the girl. “You are agile, I will give you that,” he said, before looking around at the laughing members of the team. “Could we go train so I can get this munchkin off my back?”

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

“Okay, Luna,” started Rose, stifling her giggles at the image of the blonde girl firmly attached to Lykos’ back, “if you could get off my brother, we can start checking what style fits you the most.”

The small blonde quickly let go of the young man’s neck and fell to the ground, considering she barely reached his waist while standing up, it was quite the fall for her small frame.

She quickly stood up and dusted her bum off before turning around and facing the younger twin, bouncing on the balls of her feet from her excitement.

Rose chuckled a bit before continuing. “Now, all the younger ones have been paired with some of us already. For example, Harry has been training with Lykos while Hermione trained with me and Susan was with Pharah, so you’ll have to choose, who will train you? Bri, or Dora?” She asked the girl.

“Hmm,” the blonde hummed thoughtfully, a little pout on her lips, “couldn’t they both train me?” She asked.

“Well, yes,” agreed Rose, “but you still need to choose who is gonna spar with you so we can study your natural moveset.” She told her.

“Then I pick Dora!” Said the girl, “Bri looks too tough for me.” She sheepishly explained, to the amusement of the team.

The female metamorphmagus quickly came closer and stood in front of the girl, before they both started trading blows, Lykos and Rose watching intently.

Luna was  _ fast _ . Instead of rolling or simply moving to the side to dodge like most of them would do, she ran under Dora’s strikes, giving quick jabs of her own when passing by her side. At one point they thought she was gonna get hit by the pink-haired girl, just for Luna to bend even lower, barely slowing down.

The twins exchanged a look. “Ghost bat.” They said at the same time with a nod before calling the sparring girls to a stop.

“Okay Luna, we know your style,” started Lykos, much to the blonde’s excitement, “you’re a Ghost Bat, a style centered around stealth and evasion while running in circles around your opponents, normally using complex body contortions at full speed.”

“I’m thinking a flying fox helmet instead of the typical bat head, what do you think?” Asked Rose, looking around their group. She soon found herself with the small blonde latched around her neck and not letting go, her feet dangling mid-air,  _ again. _

Lykos fell to the floor in laughter, and was soon joined by the rest of the team, minus a stunned Rose and the still-hanging Luna.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

That afternoon, they were all sitting in the Potter’s backyard, as was their little tradition after a day of training, and discussed everything that happened, filling Luna in where needed, after finally dislodging her from Rose’s neck of course, though she still sat in-between the twins.

“You brought back a basilisk egg?” The blonde asked them, eyes open even wider in amazement, “when do you think it will hatch?!” She asked eagerly.

“No one knows, Luna,” sighed Harry, “the Flamels say that the alignment of the planets and stars for something like this to be possible is so rare, that there is barely any mention of it even  _ happening, _ let alone of its results. We hope is not too long though.” He said.

Luna just looked intently at Harry for a little bit before speaking again. “You shouldn’t feel so bad about killing her, Harry. She asked you all to send her off towards the other side, and that you look after her child,” she told him softly.

Harry sighed again, “it’s hard you know?” He whispered, “I was almost made an orphan myself when I was a baby, so doing it to another being...” He trailed off, a small frown on his face.

Hermione leaned over from his side and dropped her head on his shoulder, turning her body so she could properly hug her friend.

“It’s eating away at you,” finished Susan for him, nodding, “it’s the same for me, I was orphaned during the war, and it’s only because of Wizarding Britain’s narrow-mindedness, bigotry and obsession with remaining separate from all things muggle that my parents couldn’t be saved.” She said softly, leaning into her ‘big sister’ Pharah’s side.

“I’m still wondering why we should save them,” said a bitter Dora, she didn’t like seeing her honorary siblings so depressed, and it was all Britain’s fault, “they created this mess in the first place, shouldn’t it be their work to solve it?”

“Normally, I would agree with you, Nym,” said Lykos, hugging the young woman around the shoulders, “but we are  _ not _ doing this for Britain. That bastard killed a lot of friends and family of everyone here. Harry’s grandparents, practically Susan’s whole family, Sirius’ brother Regulus, the list goes on. We’re not saving Britain, we’re taking revenge on the man who hurt our family so much.” He said darkly, kissing the top of her head.

“What should we name the baby basilisk?” Asked Rose, trying to steer the conversation away from the depressing topic.

Lykos smiling at his sister, they both may be stealthy when it came to movement, but she was never the best at subtlety when it came to conversations. “Did she ever tell you her name, Harry?”

“No, I just called her the parsel word for basilisk,  _ Great One _ .” He told them with a small, thoughtful frown

“Why not Medusa?” Asked Brigitte, “I know she was a gorgon, but…”

“I like it,” said Luna after a bit of thought, “it flows nicely.”

“Me too.” Agreed Hermione.

One by one, they agreed on the proposed name. The little snake that they weren’t even sure  _ when _ it was gonna be born was already named, now it was just hoping that she liked her name.

“Harry, what do you say if we play something?” Lykos asked suddenly after a while, standing up from the ground, “I have my guitar with me.”

“Why not? I wanted to practice some of the lullabies anyway” Said the raven-haired boy, rising up alongside the older teen to go fetch their instruments.

It was just after Lykos was done singing the first song that Rose felt a little weight on her side. Looking over, she saw Luna curled up and snuggling into her arm.

“Some things never change.” She told her brother with a smile, nodding towards the little blonde.

Lykos smiled a bit before removing his black coat and softly covered the small girl with it.

“You two have always had that protective feeling around you, it’s nice,” said Dora, watching her boyfriend taking care of Luna with a smile, “but how do you do it?”

“When it comes to those he sees as family, Lykos is a wolf,” Rose started the explanation, “he has always been like that. If he sees you as family, he will do his utmost to both, be there for you and protect you,” she said with a small grin, “and I always wanted some baby siblings, so whenever mom babysat any of the younger ones, be it Harry, Susan, Neville or Luna, I liked to always be there, helping, so maybe it’s that.” She told her brother’s girlfriend.

Dora just nodded at the older girl’s words, still watching enraptured with how the twins took great care of the sleeping girl.

The sleeping blonde ended up in Rose’s arms while Lykos and Harry kept softly playing, with the older one singing from time to time. Not once did Luna stir from her sleep, the young man’s warm voice helping keep her in the Sandman’s realm.

They were finally back home, and after the past week and a half away they had, they just wanted to rest and process everything that had happened. They had a new friend and teammate now though, and they couldn’t wait to see just what she could bring to their team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you spot a mistake that we overlooked, don't hesitate to let me know! It's the only way I'll get better after all.
> 
> So, a lot of mushy stuff in this chapter. The twins showing a lot of their 'older sibling' side, some serious talk about the effects killing the basilisk had in some of them, and a relatively, I hope, expected revelation. Yes, Lykos and Dora are dating, and I've been hinting at it since chapter 7.
> 
> Yes, Luna is a lot more childish than the team, but that is because she hasn't had the same training thry've had since a young age. That doesn't mean she won't be just as powerful as them though!
> 
> I've got nothing more to add, so I'll see you in my next chapter or story! Or maybe in the comments of other stories, who knows?!


	18. Medusa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Ignis here with a new chapter! Tyrannic_Puppy has been busy with real life stuff, like work, so he couldn't beta the chapter this time. Sorry in advance if there's a lot of mistakes.
> 
> A big thank you to everyone who has been subscribing, bookmarking, leaving kudos and commenting. It means a lot!
> 
> I'll with you at the end so...ON WITH THE STORY!!!

It had been a month since the team had come back from Britain, a month they had used to teach Luna the animagus transformation, have her take the multimagus pill and then have her react to the stone. Her natural form had been a flying fox, a kind of bat whose diet consisted on pollen and nectar, and she had quickly added to that a raven, a fennec fox (she had said it was too adorable to pass up) and an ocelot. Once she had interacted with the Stone, her aura glowing a soft silver, her raven form had shifted into a Hrafn, a Norse, incredibly smart kind of raven that was the inspiration for Hugin and Munin, Odin’s ravens.

They had also finally managed to know Harry’s baby sibling’s sex, he was gonna have a little sister to protect once she was born. This had prompted laughs from Lykos. “At this rate, we will have to wait until Voldemort is done with and the Longbottom move here before having another guy in the team.” He had said between laughs. He had earned a playful slap upside his head from Dora for that.

But the basilisk egg had been moving the past few days, and now Harry had called them through intercom to meet him in the lab, it was time.

They met in the main room in the lab, Harry already waiting for them there with the egg’s incubator at his side. In the past moth, the egg had lost its white, solid coloration and had started to look more like an emerald, allowing them to see the baby basilisk growing inside.

They saw the egg shake a bit and the little snake inside start to hit the shell with her head, slowly cracking it. And then she was free.

Her eyes were a dull yellow, that with time would start shining and would become deadly to look at, though she would be able to keep herself from killing anyone covering her eyes with a secondary set of eyelids, if what Nicholas said was true. Her scales were a pale green, that would darken in the coming days until they were the same dark green as her mother’s.

“She’s so cute!” Gushed Luna as they all watched the little basilisk look around and taste the air.

“Harry, why don’t you try speaking to her?” Suggested Lykos, nudging the boy forward.

Harry crouched until his face was right in front of the little snake and started hissing, the rest watching expectantly, wondering if she was gonna say her first words, or was that hisses? They suddenly hear a soft, almost silent sound, noticing that Harry had stopped speaking.

“What is she saying?” Whispered Pharah.

“I can’t understand her,” Harry whispered back, “she’s talking gibberish.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” chimed in Rose, still whispering so Harry could still hear the little snake, “she’s just come out of the shell, she’s literally a newborn,you wouldn’t expect a baby to start speaking the moment it was born, would you?”

“Does that mean that Harry and James will have to teach her how to speak?” Asked Hermione.

“I don’t know, and I doubt anyone does except for those who have raised a basilisk.” The young woman answered her, still looking at Harry hissing at the newborn snake.

“She’s such a cutie,” said Luna, coming to stand beside the hissing boy and started to coo over the baby snake.

“I’ll call uncle James and the Flamels, they might know a bit more about what Harry will have to do while raising her.” Said Lykos, going to the nearest computer to make the call.

A couple of minutes later, not only James and the Flamels had arrived, but everyone else in Watchpoint had decided to come and meet the new addition to their numbers. She may not be human, ape or robot, but she was one of them now, nonetheless.

“Don’t worry Harry,” said Perenelle with a reassuring smile, “her language is in her blood, like with all animals, you won’t have to teach her how to speak. Though it would help her if you spoke to her as much as possible, and maybe carried her around with you, so she gets used to everyone.” She told him.

Meanwhile, James had started handling the little snake and softly started to hiss her name at her.

“May I hold her?” Asked Luna, her eyes open wide and shining.

The elder Potter just smiled at her and handed down the small snake, who quickly coiled herself around the blonde’s wrist.

“Hello Medusa.” Luna said softly, tickling the snake’s chin.

🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲🗲

“She seems to have taken a real liking to you.” Said Harry the next day while the whole team was sitting in his home backyard as always, seeing how Medusa coiled herself around Luna’s forearm the moment she saw her.

“It’s a gift,” she said, petting the snake’s body, “I would like it if Crumple-Horned Snorkacks were as easy to charm though.” She pouted.

“A what now?” Asked Hermione.

“A Crumple-Horned Snorkack, they are supposed to live in Sweden, but mummy and daddy have been looking for one for years and haven’t found it yet.” She told them.

“Huh,” said Hermione, “maybe we can help you look? Once Voldemort is dealt with, our job will be done and we won’t have much more to do, to be honest.” She shrugged.

“Really?” Asked the blonde, her eyes shining with a light of their own, “you would?”

“Why not? It may be fun.” Smirked Lykos, who quickly found himself with the little blonde hanging off his neck once again. “You’re making an habit out of this!” He told her with a chuckle.

“Enough mushy stuff!” Said Dora, suddenly standing up, “Luna, could you let go of my boyfriend? I want to spar for a bit!”

Luna quickly got off Lykos’ neck, allowing the young man to stand up and position himself face to face with his girlfriend, dropping into his battle stance.

“Okay Nym, let’s see what you can do!”

At the sound of the sparring partners, the little basilisk rose her head from around Luna’s wrist and looked towards them, before turning towards Harry and softly hissed to get his attention. Once she had it, she signaled with his head towards the two fighting humans before turning towards Harry again and tilting her head, not unlike a puppy.

§They are play fighting, small one,§ Harry told her, §it would do you well to watch the taller one, he moves like a snake.§

At that, the baby basilisk turned to watch enraptured the two fighters, that she couldn’t really speak yet didn’t mean she couldn’t understand them! The tall one definitely moved like he was one of her own kind, dodging the attacks of the pink haired one without apparent effort, then sending quick jabs with the ends of his long appendages at her.

She unconsciously started to copy his movements, taking care of not hurting the blonde she liked to hug. Left, right, under, higher, quick bite, under, left, right. She kept copying him until they stopped, displaying their fangs, were they mad at each other now? She looked towards Harry once again, hoping for an explanation. He didn’t disappoint.

§They are done play fighting, small one, they are now discussing where they can improve.§ He told her.

“I think we should look into getting you a staff Nym, it would help you with more acrobatic movements, and for a longer reach in close range combat, that seems to be the only reason you can’t land too many hits on either Harry or me, we have a longer reaching style.” Lykos told his girlfriend, walking back to sit with the rest of the group.

“Yeah, right. With how clumsy I am most of the time, I would end up hitting myself more than the enemy.” She joked.

“You aren’t clumsy while fighting or training though,” pointed out Brigitte, “yeah, at the beginning you were always falling over yourself, but after some training you were barely tripping. It would be the same getting used to wielding a staff,” she said, “and I have to admit that I kinda want to see you do some of the moves of the Monkey King style.” She admitted sheepishly.

“What weapons would fit the rest of us?” Asked Hermione, “I mean, you and Harry use those daggers of yours, and Dora would use the staff, but what about our styles?”

“Hmm,” hummed Rose thoughtfully, “well, an Eagle normally uses fans, daggers and whips, like you have seen me use, actually. Cranes I normally see with long staves, Leopards mostly use daggers, while Panthers and Ghost Bats I’ve seen mostly with daggers and clawed gloves.” She said.

“Think it would be a good idea if we all trained with one of those?” Asked Bri.

“Definitely,” nodded Lykos, “with this I don’t mean you should drop the hammer Bri, but Leopards are master deceivers, so it would do you well to have a knife and feign injuries during a fight,” He told the engineer’s daughter.

It was agreed. They would ask the agents to try and get them the weapons they would need to train with, maybe even make them if they could get the designs for Torbjörn. And they would see about teaching Medusa to fight as she grew, though they didn’t know if the Cobra style that Harry and Lykos practiced would carry on well enough on her. Only time would tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was it? Good? Bad? Let me know in the comments! Also, if you spot a mistake I overlooked, don't hesitate to let me know! It's the only way I'll get bettter after all.
> 
> Another mushy chapter for today, and introducing Medusa the baby basilisk! Also, that little Snorkack bit? You can't have a story featuring the Lovegoods without Snorkacks!
> 
> This is the last chapter I will post in this story for a while. I'm gonna take a little rest from this so I can get some new ideas for the next chapters. There will be a Christmas chapter though!
> 
> I've got nothing more to add, so I'll see you in my next chapter or story! Or the comments for other stories, who knows?!

**Author's Note:**

> I guess some explanantions are in order.
> 
> First things first: No matter what story of mine you read, I'll always have James and Lily alive and kicking, I just want Harry to have his parents with him, is that too bad?
> 
> Second: I don't like Dumbledore too much, so the few times you'll see me include him on my fics, don't expect him to either a) be around for long, or b) have good things happen to him
> 
> Third: I know I'm using a lot of classical, cliché HP fandom tropes for this and one or two Deus Ex Machina just in the first chapter, but I just needed a quick way to get rid of stuff and bringing the Potters back, and Mercy exists so...
> 
> Fourth: I'm a Harmony, a Jily, and a Gency shipper, so if you were expecting some other ships for those characters, I'm sorry, but you won't get them from me


End file.
